Jon Kolko-Exposing The Magic of Design - A Practitioner's Guide To The Methods and Theory of Synthesis (Oxford Series in Human-Technology Interaction) PDF

Exposing the
Magic of Design
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Exposing the
Magic of Design
A Practitioner’s Guide
to the Methods
and Theory of Synthesis
Jon Kolko
With contributions from:
Beth Johnson and
Gianna Marzilli Ericson, Design Continuum
Paul Gould, MAYA Design
Colleen Murray, Jump Associates
Hugh Dubberly, Dubberly Design Office
Lauren Serota, frog design
Rachel Hinman, Nokia
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Kolko, Jon.
Exposing the magic of design : a practitioner’s guide to the methods and
theory of synthesis / By Jon Kolko.
p. cm. — (Oxford series in human-technology interaction)
ISBN: 978-0-19-974433-6 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Industrial design—Psychological aspects 2. Product design.
I. Title.
TS171.4.K648 2011
745.2—dc22 2010036267
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
To Jess, just for being there . . .
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Contents
Introduction xi
A Lack of Method in Practice Leads to Problems xii
The Goals of This Text xv
The Immediacy of This Text xvii
Section One
What Is Synthesis? 1
Chapter 1
A Theory of Synthesis 03
Understanding How People Solve Problems 04
Acting on an Informed Hunch 08
Making a Judgment 08
Using Partial or Incomplete Information 09
Understanding, and Breaking, Constraints 09
Chapter 2
Sensemaking, Frames, Models, and Patterns 11
The Role of Perspective in Framing Situations 13
The Importance of Models in Sensemaking 15
Mental Models as a Specific Type 17
of Cognitive Representation
The Nature of Patterns on Our Experiences 20
Chapter 3
Abductive Reasoning 23
Contents vii
Section Two
Design Synthesis in a Business Context 29
Chapter 4
The Value of Synthesis in Driving Innovation 31
What Is Innovation? 37
Design Synthesis Links Innovation Research 38
and Design
Chapter 5
The Culture of Synthesis 41
Challenging Constraints and Questioning Purpose 43
Being Playful 46
Experiencing Flow 50
Using Visualization as a Primary Mechanism 54
of Thought
Changing a Prohibitive Culture 56
Section Three
Methods and Applicability 59
Chapter 6
Methods for Making Meaning out of Data 63
Externalizing the Process (Get out of Your Laptop!) 63
Using Visual Design to Clean up the Mess 65
Organizing to Produce Semantic Relationships 65
Prioritizing the Data to Emphasize What Is Important 66
Judging the Data to Reduce the Quantity 66
Enhancing the Data through “Best Guess” 66
Intuitive Leaps
For Example: Getting to Meaning through Story 67
Method: Affinity Diagramming 76
How to Apply This Method 76
For Example: Parallel Clustering 79
Method: Flow Diagramming 86
For Example: The Flow through a Hunter 94
Fan Thermostat
viii Contents
Chapter 7
Methods for Building an Experience Framework 101
Telling a Story 102
Changing the Scale 102
Shifting the Placements 103
Method: Concept Mapping 104
For Example: Using Concept Maps in 109
Product Development
Method: Forced Semantic Zoom (“Ecosystem Mapping”) 125
For Example: Breakpoint Diagrams and Other 136
Tools for Transitions
Method: Forced Temporal Zoom 147
(“Customer Journey Mapping”)
For Example: The Emotional Touch Points of Shopping 155
Chapter 8
Methods for Creating Empathy and Insight 159
Understanding Chasm 3: Empathy and Insight 159
Method: Reframing 160
Method: Insight Combination 164
Conclusion 169
Glossary 171
Works Cited 173
Index 177
Contents ix
Introduction
Designers continually describe their profession as a way of

organizing complexity or finding clarity in an overwhelming
amount of data. Jeff Veen, founder of leading design consul-
tancy Adaptive Path, has noted that “Good designers can create
normalcy out of chaos” (Veen, 2000). Jim Wicks, vice president
and director of Motorola’s Consumer Experience Design Group
gives the name “synthesis” to this ability to create normalcy. As
he explains, design always includes “. . . synthesis—synthesis of
market needs, technology trends, and business needs” (Wicks,
2006). During synthesis, designers attempt “to organize,
manipulate, prune and filter gathered data into a cohesive struc-
ture for information building” (Kolko, 2007b). Synthesis reveals
a cohesion and sense of continuity. Synthesis indicates a push toward
organization, reduction, and clarity.
Yet despite the acknowledged importance of this phase of
the design process, synthesis appears magical when encoun-
tered in professional practice. This sense of magic is both
good and bad. The idea of designers as magicians is an intrigu-
ing metaphor, because their work is mysterious and the
output can be phenomenal and tremendously emotional. Yet
for those who value logical and linear thinking—both engi-
neers and business owners, respectfully—design synthesis is
a frustrating part of product development. Because the act of
synthesis—the revelation of clarity—is frequently performed
privately (“in the head” or “on scratch paper”), the outcome is
all that is observed, and only after the designer has explicitly
begun the form-making process. Unlike other aspects of the
design process (such as drawing, which even a naïve or
detached audience can observe and generally grasp), synthesis
is often a more insular activity, one that is harder to understand
or even impossible to see. A designer may follow a user-
centered discovery process to immerse himself in a particular
subject or discipline, and he will then “incubate” that material.
Introduction xi
After a period of reflection, he produces a tangible artifact to
visually represent the reflection. Synthesis conducted in pri-
vate produces no visible connection between the input and
the output. Often, not even the designer himself can articu-
late the exact value of his design insights. He must create a
plausible rationale after the fact, or the client must trust him.
More often than not, the client simply rejects the insight as
being “blue sky,” “unfounded,” or simply too risky.
For example, a designer developing a new digital device
might study the use of digital devices in the workplace.
Typically, the designer would observe four or five users as
they work. The designer would question the users about their
jobs and record their responses. The designer might also take
screen shots or photographs of the tools being used and probe
for details about each tool. Then, in the privacy of her studio,
the designer would attempt to make sense of what she has
learned. Her goal would be to find relationships or themes in
the research data and to uncover hidden meaning in the
observed behavior that applies to the design task at hand.
The user-research sessions would have produced pages of
verbal transcript, hundreds of pictures, and dozens of artifact
examples. Because of the complexity of thinking of so much
data at once, the designer would turn to a large sheet of paper
and a blank wall to “map it all out.” Several hours later, the
paper would be covered with what, to the uninitiated, appears
to be a mess. Yet the designer has made substantial progress,
and the mess actually represents the deep and meaningful
sensemaking that drives innovation. The designer will have
identified themes in the data, and she will better understand
the problem she is trying to solve. The designer will have dis-
covered “the whole,” as described by Daniel Fallman, a pro-
fessor at Umeå University: “Fieldwork, theory and evaluation
data provide systematic input to this process, but do not by
themselves provide the necessary whole. For the latter, there
is only design” (Fallman, 2003).
A Lack of Method in Practice Leads to Problems

Methods of contextual research are increasingly common in
the development of new products, systems, and services, and
xii Introduction
they are performed in more progressive companies to observe
users in order to learn from them. Researchers may use pri-
mary research tools, such as ethnography, quantitative sur-
veys, or more traditional forms of market research, to gather
data from their customers. Bodies of secondary research
describe how the brain works, how people solve complicated
and multifaceted problems, and how to apply creative think-
ing to policy or social science. And most design literature
emphasizes learning by doing, explaining that there must be
an explicit translation phase of research in order to make
sense out of it.
Yet rarely do practicing designers have sufficient time to
perform design synthesis in a rigorous, substantial manner.
Anecdotal evidence indicates that even the most advanced
and well-known corporations touch only tangentially on
issues of synthesis, interpretation, and the rigorous process of
translation—of making sense of the gathered research—dur-
ing their normal work activities. And while academic research
has described how people make sense of complexity, this
research is published in exclusive scientific journals that rarely
find their way into design consultancies or large corporations.
Even when they do, they often reference other papers and
require a long trail backwards to become understandable and
actionable.
Compounding the problem, the designers who actually
build the systems, services, products, and artifacts that we use
on a daily basis self-characterize as being overworked and too
busy to delve into the complicated literature of tangential dis-
ciplines. They require something more immediate and
approachable if they are to integrate new ideas into their
design process. They do not lack the intellect to understand
the complexity of academic research; they simply lack the
time to read it at all.
Thus, practicing designers are not using the strong set of
grounding theories for design synthesis. To an observer
(commonly a client), the physical output, the themes, and
the design ideas produced seem arbitrary, or magically derived.
The artifacts developed by the designer are messy, usually
drawn in the midst of deep and reflective thinking. They are
sketches drawn in Sharpie, incomplete sentences, and crude
Introduction xiii
diagrams without adequate captions or descriptions. If the
beginning state (the research data) is compared to the end
state (the design idea), it is not immediately evident how one
led to the other. In fact, it can be argued that the more innova-
tive the output, the more difficult it is to identify how the idea
was developed. Yet the incubation period described earlier
can be well structured, and the things that occur during that
period are both repeatable and comprehensible. It is only the
lack of understandable documentation, or the decision to not
share that documentation, that creates the sense of magic.
Clients may well desire magic, because it suggests that
they have spent their money well (after all, they have hired
magicians or shamans!). But the notion that design synthesis
is magical and therefore difficult to formalize has led to four
very large problems that plague the industries of designed
artifacts:
1. Clients do not see the relationship between design research

and design ideas; therefore, they entirely discount the
value of design research and design synthesis. Because
synthesis is frequently relegated to an informal step in
the overall process, it is practiced implicitly and little
physical, obvious evidence is produced to support it.
After several design projects that include implicit
design synthesis, a client may proclaim that he does
not see the value in a discovery phase for future design
activities. Of course he is right: He did not see
anything of value, so he assumed the phase to be a
waste of resources.
2. Design consultancies do not plan for, assign resources to, or

appropriately bill for synthesis activities, and so design
synthesis happens casually or not at all. If no formal period
of time is allotted for design synthesis methods and no
formal deliverables are associated with these methods,
the designer receives a strong message: Synthesize on
your own time, or do not synthesize at all.
3. When synthesis actually occurs, it is perceived as messy,

and so it gains a negative reputation as an overly
complicated or difficult part of the process. The output of
xiv Introduction
design synthesis is frequently incomplete or
intangible—the value of the output is not immediately
evident, because the results are “half baked.” Synthesis
often results in high-level themes and paradigms that
help shape future design activities, but these
conceptual elements may be seen in retrospect as too
abstract as to justify the time and resources spent.
4. Novice designers do not know how to accomplish

synthesis, so they flounder through this portion of the
design process. These methods are rarely formalized in
design education, and experienced designers have
taught themselves to achieve synthesis in their heads
in an informal, reflective manner. A beginning
designer has few places to turn while attempting to
solve design’s intellectual problems.
These problems are roadblocks to innovation, and they

illustrate a deep disconnect between the core process of
insight development and the billed process of product devel-
opment. Yet synthesis methods have been continually refer-
enced as critical in sensemaking and organization, and in
drawing important connections between elements that
appear to be unrelated. These are the keys for relating research
to design. Synthesis methods are the ways in which ethno-
graphic insights are mapped to new, innovative, appropriate,
or compelling ideas.
These principles and methods are teachable, repeatable,
and understandable. They are creative activities that actively
generate intellectual value and that are unique to the disci-
pline of design. Most important, when applied and formal-
ized, these activities are billable and immensely useful in the
development of novel, useful, and appropriate designs.
The Goals of This Text

There are three goals for this text. The first goal is to present a
theory of design synthesis in a simple and concise manner. This
theory is based on academic research and discourse, but it is
presented in a way that is clear and valuable to a practicing
design manager, designer, or design researcher. This theory of
Introduction xv
design synthesis can then be used to substantiate single
methods of synthesis.
The second goal is to offer a rationalization of why design
synthesis is important, both in a general sense (“Why should I
care about this at all?”) as well as in a more immediate sense
(“Why should I care about this right now?”).
The final goal is to present a set of actionable, learnable
methods for design synthesis that can be applied to any design
problem. Practicing industrial designers, interaction design-
ers, interface designers, and designers of other disciplines can
use these methods to make sense of complicated design prob-
lems and to move seamlessly from various forms of research
to design. The methods can add a systematic sense of rigor to
an otherwise subjective, often introspective process.
This text is an introduction to design synthesis for
practicing designers and business owners. The text presents a
framework of synthesis, borrowing heavily from research
related to human behavior. Within this framework, the text
also presents a series of design techniques that can be imme-
diately applied to both big and small design problems. Finally,
more advanced applications of synthesis illustrate the poten-
tial for complicated problem solving.
Many designers struggle with innovation expectations. They
are asked by their company or client to develop new, interest-
ing, and marketable designs on demand, much as a dog might
be expected to roll over. If you are in this situation, you may
wish to skip directly to the Methods section, where you will
find a number of techniques you can apply almost instantly to
stimulate your creativity.
Like many designers, you might also question the intellec-
tual roots of your work when asked to give clients a cohesive
theoretical substantiation for what automatically appears
during design. You may wish to read only the Theory section,
because these chapters describe the psychological frame-
works that underlie much of the work you already do.
Designers, both new and experienced, will likely benefit
from reading the whole text in order, because it offers both a
theoretical foundation as well as multiple repeatable design
methods for generating meaning and taming complexity. You
will also benefit from the whole if you are a business owner, a
xvi Introduction
product manager, or a subject-matter expert in a large corpo-
ration that finds itself in the anxiety-ridden role of developing
new products, systems, and services.
The Immediacy of This Text

For increasingly complex issues of sustainability, finance,
culture, and technology, businesses are searching for a form
of problem solving that can deal with the unprecedented
levels of ambiguity, chaos, and data. Businesses that need a
way to stay competitive in a global economy have been urged
to reject standard forms of marketing and product develop-
ment. The popular media has disparaged traditional “linear
thinking” as inadequate for the global economic crisis. Yet
little has been offered as an alternative. It is not enough to
demand more innovation without providing the tools to suc-
ceed. Design synthesis is a way of thinking about complicated,
multifaceted problems of this scale with a repeatable degree
of success.
Introduction xvii
Exposing the
Magic of Design
Section One
What Is Synthesis?
Chapter 1
A Theory of Synthesis
Synthesis in design involves the combination of two

complicated entities: the designer and the design problem.
The theoretical grounding presented in this chapter empha-
sizes the unique qualities of the designer (her experience,
expertise, and the complexity of her design and personal
experiences) and the unique qualities of the designer’s frame
of the design problem (the inherent constraints and her
mental model of the problem). The designer and the design
problem engage in a dance of process, creativity, and often,
conflict.
A consideration of this theoretical grounding of synthesis
offers two main benefits to the reflective designer. First, this
theoretical grounding acknowledges the complexity of the
designer, and it begins to hint at what makes a “good” designer
“good.” Through the designer’s experience, he has been able
to develop knowledge that extends beyond the domain of a
specific design sector (mobile, Web, pharmaceutical, retail)
and into the actual process of design. With a fair degree of
autonomy, an experienced designer can therefore understand,
rationalize, and better frame a given design problem. The
designer develops unique constraints that are not part of the
original client brief and understands how these constraints
directly contribute to his ability to solve the given problem.
Secondly, the theoretical grounding describes a foundation
upon which the “magic” of design occurs. This is the cogni-
tive rationale for why design happens. It explains why design-
ers are able to take incomplete data, manipulate it in various
ways, and invent things that are relevant, innovative, or
appropriate.
This chapter explains the fundamentals of design
intellectualism. Because synthesis is a process of making
meaning, it is not unique to design. In fact, for years,
researchers from other disciplines have been investigating
how people make meaning. Computer scientists have exam-
ined how people solve problems, often with the goal of creat-
ing problem-solving systems. The larger umbrella for this
research—artificial intelligence—is well known, but many of
the theories that ground it are hidden in arcane journals and
rarely discussed in relation to aesthetics or product develop-
ment. Similarly, university researchers of communications
and information sciences have attempted to craft a unified
theory of how people transmit information. Although this
research could have immediate resonance in our work, too
often it is hidden in university libraries and mired in compli-
cated medical prose.
Understanding How People Solve Problems

The late Herb Simon, one of the most prolific social and
computer scientists of the 20th century, spent much of his
professional career trying to discover how people decide.
Although his work initially focused on pragmatic administra-
tive and economic theories, he soon gravitated toward under-
standing how people solve problems, because problem
solving is ultimately a process of decision making.
Discussion of problem solving would seem to be reserved
for complicated fields like physics or chemistry, but in reality,
we all solve countless problems each day. From the “problem”
of choosing what to wear in the morning, to the “problem” of
finding an e-mail buried in a messy inbox, our lives are filled
with issues to be solved. Often these problems are hierarchi-
cal. For example, trying to locate an old e-mail may simply be
a way to dig up information needed to solve a larger problem.
Consider the following:
1. [The large problem] I need to find the best and most

appropriate people in my organization to assign to a
specific project and get them involved with the project.
a. [An embedded problem] I need to find an old

e-mail that describes the availability and skill set of
Jeff Smith.
4 Exposing the Magic of Design

i. [An embedded problem] I do not find the
e-mail when I do a text search for Jeff ’s name.
Simon’s interest in problem solving stemmed from another
interest: artificial intelligence. He investigated how people
conduct complicated activities, with the goal of modeling and
eventually reproducing these actions using a computer.
Computers are good at replicating mundane or procedural
tasks. For example, if I want a computer to flag every e-mail
that contains the words “Jeff Smith,” I can create a simple pro-
cedural rule and the computer will follow my instructions.
This type of problem is “well structured.” Simon defined
this type of problem as fulfilling the following criteria (Simon,
1973):
1. It includes criteria to test the solution and a repeatable
process for applying the criteria. In the earlier e-mail
example, the criterion is finding a specific word in the
body of the e-mail.
Figure 1.1
Hierarchical problems.
2. We can identify the initial problem state (e-mails exist;
do they have the phrase “Jeff Smith” in them?); the
goal state (we know that each e-mail either does or
does not contain the phrase); and the interim states
(we search through each e-mail, word by word, until
we have searched the whole e-mail).
3. We can identify “legal moves”—that is, the steps we

take to solve the problem that fall within the logical
constraints of the system.
4. We can identify any knowledge the problem solver has

about the problem.
5. The “legal moves” required to solve the problem

reflect the laws of nature; for example, one cannot
expect the computer to read minds.
6. The “legal moves” required to solve the problem

require only practical levels of effort.
If a problem is not well structured, Simon described it as
“ill structured.” Design problems related to innovation and
creativity—the types of problems facing designers of prod-
ucts, software, and services—are almost always ill structured,
because they do not fulfill the aforementioned criteria. One
cannot ask a computer to “come up with the next big thing”
or “develop the new innovative product.” Computers have
difficulty with even seemingly small ill structured problems,
like the initial problem mentioned earlier (“I need to find the
best and most appropriate people in my organization to assign
to a specific project and get them involved with the project”).
There are a few things that make it ill structured:
1. What does the “best and most appropriate talent

possible” mean in this particular project context? What
are the criteria for deeming something “best”? What
kind of talent?
2. What does it mean to “appropriately assign a person to

a project”? Is this a match based on experience, skills,
availability, or personality?

3. What criteria can we use to test the solution? Can we
compare and contrast what would happen if we
assigned Jeff Smith, as compared to Helen Jones, to
the project?
Although this problem is ill defined and hard for a com-

puter to solve, it is quite solvable by a person. People confront
this type of problem successfully in their jobs every day.
Consider what happens as our scenario plays out:
I need to find the best and most appropriate people in my

organization to assign to a specific project and get them
involved with the project. It is a project that requires some
deep experience with mobile messaging, and I recall that Jeff
Smith worked on something similar to this in the past. The
project was successful, and I am pretty sure it was because of
Jeff ’s contribution. If I remember correctly, Jeff has a really
positive attitude. He can work with everyone, and although
he is a leader, he allows others to feel as though they have
come up with the big ideas.
I search through my e-mail, in an effort to locate an old
e-mail that described when Jeff Smith would be available for
a new project and that also provided details about his skill
set. I remember that his manager sent this a few months ago.
I cannot find the e-mail when I do a simple text search for
Jeff ’s name because there are a number of Jeff Smiths in the
company. After several more attempts, I give up. I pick up the
phone and call his manager directly. We have a brief
discussion, and he tells me that Jeff is able to tackle a
mobile-messaging program, and he is available and eager to
participate in this type of project again. It is confirmed, then:
Jeff will start ASAP.
In this scenario, I have made substantial progress, yet I

have made a number of leaps that a computer would have a
hard time emulating.
1. I am “pretty sure” that Jeff was essential to the previous

project’s success, but I have no objective evidence to
support this. It is a memory, and it might be wrong.
2. I decide that Jeff is the best talent possible with little
formal or repeatable evaluation of other choices. In
fact, I have focused in on Jeff very quickly—there may
be someone much better, but I do not even consider
other candidates.
3. I cannot remember much about the e-mail, except that
it came from his manager.
4. I subvert the entire e-mail search by using a different
communications mechanism: the phone.
These leaps represent typical interpretative (and subjec-
tive, but not necessarily haphazard) steps seen during prob-
lem solving of ill-defined problems: acting on an informed
hunch, making a judgment, using partial information, and,
after working within constraints to no avail, completely
breaking out of these constraints.
Acting on an Informed Hunch

We often make decisions in the “blink of an eye”—using our
intuition and acting on an informed hunch (Gladwell, 2007).
To do this, we use tacit knowledge—knowledge built up over
time, through experience—concerning the problem. In the
earlier example, the project was successful, and I am pretty sure it
was because of Jeff ’s contribution. I have gathered evidence,
through hallway conversations and through observational
evidence, to draw a fragile link between Jeff ’s contributions
and the project’s success. Additionally, I am willing to act on
that link. The problem solving depends on my ability to
commit without a complete picture of the problem. Without
a complete picture, the information I have will have to satis-
fice. The idea of satisficing, and the word itself, are central to
Simon’s theory of bounded rationality, which implies that
people will make rational decisions given the limited infor-
mation they have at a given time.
Making a Judgment
I judge Jeff to be the best possible talent for the position, yet I
never consider other candidates. This is a subjective, evalua-
tive activity, and I might be completely wrong. Instead, I have
synthesized various “moving parts” to the problem, over time,

and somewhat autotelically. My judgment—given the above
bounded rationality—allows the process to continue and for
an active decision to be made. To some degree, once I have
made this decision (perhaps without even being aware that
there was a decision to make), it is incredibly difficult to undo
the decision. Even with an attempt at objectivity, I will likely
ignore evidence that discounts my decision and embrace
evidence that supports it.
Using Partial or Incomplete Information

I cannot identify which “Jeff Smith” is the correct one or
remember enough about Jeff to successfully search through
the data I have gathered (i.e., my e-mail inbox). Yet somehow
I have associated all of the subjective, evaluative ideas about
Jeff ’s abilities to an incomplete idea of him.
This particular association describes how priming can
create a sense of spreading activation, leading quickly from
one idea to another. The words “Jeff Smith,” combined with
my contextual cues (resourcing, job, e-mail search), allow me
to “think around” the problem and eventually land on the
proper memory of Jeff ’s manager. I can think of all of the
related aspects of this particular Jeff: the last time I saw him,
the horned-rimmed glasses he wears, and his red hair. All of
these traits help me hone in on the particular idea of Jeff in
memory, and this honing ability is critical to problem solving.
Understanding, and Breaking, Constraints

Perhaps the most important part of problem solving is the
ability, and tendency, for successful decision makers to work
around or completely ignore formal or technical constraints.
In this case, the “problem constraints” included e-mail and a
search mechanism. Yet a human element holds not only the
answers to the question of “Who is Jeff ?” but also additional
subjective, qualitative—and important—data about Jeff ’s
ability and availability for the project. Eventually, I subvert
the system by calling Jeff ’s manager. I may have broken a rule,
if there was a formal project allocation process of assigning
people to projects. But I solved the problem.
These problem-solving techniques—acting on a hunch,
making a judgment, using partial information, and breaking
constraints—point to the foundation of a theory of synthesis.
They are human, not logical, techniques. The distinction is
important, because it points to the complexities of ill-struc-
tured problem solving. It is difficult to generate a single model
of the human approach to solving ill-structured problems, so
it is equally difficult to produce tools to help people as they
solve these types of problems. Yet the strategic and innovative
portions of business are ill defined and chaotic. Rarely does a
design team have the complete picture and a strong, orga-
nized set of procedures for translating research into meaning-
ful design insights. Problems of innovation in business are
almost always ill structured, just like the one discussed in this
chapter.

Chapter 2
Sensemaking, Frames,
Models, and Patterns
Cognitive psychologists Robert R. Hoffman, Gary Klein, and

Brian M. Moon define sensemaking as “a motivated,
continuous effort to understand connections (which can be
among people, places and events) in order to anticipate their
trajectories and act effectively” (Klein, Moon, & Hoffman,
2006a). This process occurs over time as one or more people
try to connect disparate pieces of data. Their definition is
related to one of organizational theory; in a large organiza-
tion, various people may hold different pieces of data that are
all critical to the success of a product or project. Someone
may go through a sensemaking process by collecting these
pieces of data, meeting with all of the other players, and
bringing the data to a central place where it can be formed
and manipulated.
This definition builds on communication theorist Brenda
Dervin’s own theory, which implies that we learn when we
make meaning ourselves. Rather than absorbing facts as bits
of predigested elements (the way we might learn Spanish by
repeating vocabulary words to a tape), we make sense of
complexity by doing things (the way we might learn Spanish
by visiting Spain for an extended period of time).
Consider the student who is miserably failing a required
chemistry class. He does not understand the formulas being
presented or even why he should care to understand them.
The class is boring and predictable: The professor comes in,
writes on the chalkboard, and the students take notes. Class
after class, nothing stands out, and the student has trouble
remembering anything at all.
Then, one day, the professor shifts from a lecture style to an
experimental style. As class starts, the professor pours two

liquids together and a giant fireball shoots out of the beaker.
The student is intrigued. After overcoming his surprise, the
student’s mind is filled with thoughts of other fires he has seen:
cigarettes, candles, gas stove burners, campfires. Some of these
thoughts are triggered automatically, whereas others are pur-
posefully recalled through experience cognition, such as “That
reminds me of when John lit the napkin at that restaurant. I
can’t believe he was so clumsy; we almost got kicked out!”
In this example, the student has made connections
between the experiment and his life. He has integrated the
class experience into his world of knowledge and made asso-
ciations between them. Because he has made these connec-
tions, he is more likely to remember the class and make it
meaningful. If the professor is further able to hold this stu-
dent’s attention through the presentation of the formulas and
can tie this representational information to the visual process
of fire just demonstrated, the student can forge powerful con-
nections between a symbolic illustration of a reaction and the
experiential and emotional example of it.
This is sensemaking in action, albeit in a highly reductive
example. It is learning in a way that draws from the unique,
subjective, and rich experiences of the student. He is forming
associations and connections between some formulaic and
objective data, some vivid and sensory experiences in the
classroom, and the rich, personal knowledge he has gathered
through his life experiences.
The point is that in design, one should not try to escape
one’s past, emotions, or upbringing in an attempt to be more
“objective” because these elements are central to making
sense of a complicated problem. Two designers may approach
the same problem in the same way and follow the same meth-
ods and steps, yet they may end up with very different solu-
tions. This difference points to the unique aspects of the
designers themselves—their “style,” or “design sensibility”—-
which is the collective and additive whole of their lives.
Design is not entirely subjective, nor is it entirely objective,
but it is both at different moments.
An understanding of sensemaking is important because
synthesis taps deeply into the ability of a designer to judge,
through a highly subjective frame, the design problem she is

solving. An awareness of the frame itself can lead to this form
of judgment.
The Role of Perspective in Framing Situations

A frame is an active perspective that both describes and
perceptually changes a given situation. As described by Klein,
Moon, and Hoffman, “even though frames define what counts
as data, they themselves actually shape the data (for example,
a house fire will be perceived differently by the homeowner,
the fire fighters, and the arson investigator” (Klein, Moon, &
Hoffman, 2006b). A frame is, simplistically, a point of view.
Commonly, the point of view has little objectivity, so it is
often deemed “irrelevant” or “biasing.” In this way, a point of
view may differ from moment to moment and can be thought
of as a short-term perspective. But a frame, shaped over the
aggregation of thoughts and experiences, is a larger view of
the world and situations that occur in it. Like a point of view,
a frame too will change, but over the long term rather than the
short term.
We use frames to make sense of situations. Consider the
house fire described earlier. The homeowner, obviously
distraught, may react to the event in one of the following
ways:
– “I just can’t get a break. My life is a series of

unfortunate events, and this is just another example of
my bad luck.”
– “Thank goodness we escaped successfully. It’s only

stuff—it can all be replaced—it’s just important that
we are still alive.”
– “My life is over. All of my important things were in

that house, and I don’t know how I’m going to ever be
able to get my life back together again.”
Each of these statements is shaped by a lifetime of experi-

ences, and in turn, this frame will continue to shape further
action and behavior. If the homeowner views her life as over
because her objects were destroyed, she is approaching the
situation from a materialistic standpoint. The homeowner

illustrates, through this statement, that objects and artifacts
have a direct connection to her self-image. We can infer with
some degree of accuracy how this type of person might react
to another situation, because the “materialistic frame”
transfers.
In design, framing can be thought of as the designer’s per-
spective when approaching the problem (both conceptually
and pragmatically). The frame itself applies a set of exterior,
subjective constraints to the design problem; it is built on the
types of experiences referenced during sensemaking.
Take the real-world example of designers who have been
tasked with building software for use with a consumer wire-
less router, which will bring Internet access into a home and
then distribute it. The client has provided a set of practical
constraints: The software must be easy to use and must pro-
vide access to all of the functionality provided by the router.
The client may even have quantified the constraints in a
requirements spreadsheet that says things, such as “The user
will have the ability to connect to the Internet” or “The user
will have the ability to enable port forwarding.”
The design team can frame this problem from a concep-
tual point of view in any number of ways. Consider these
high-level frames:
• Ease of use. The user should never encounter confusing

things or technical jargon.
• Power. The software should afford complete control

over the robust feature set of the router, so the user
should be able to manage even the most nuanced
setting on the router.
• Pleasure. The act of using the router software should be

pleasing and emotionally fulfilling. The user should
always feel a deep and emotional response to the
various routing activities.
In fact, each of these frames was suggested by various

designers on this project. Not surprisingly, the first frame was
suggested by a designer with an interest in usability
engineering, the second by a more technical designer, and the
third by a designer who specialized in visual interface creation.

All of the frames add extra constraints to those supplied by
the client, yet these extra constraints are not a burden. In fact,
they allow the designers to move forward with their work, as
they funnel the realm of “all possible choices” into a much
smaller and workable set of “appropriate choices.”
Framing manifests itself at a much more detailed level, too.
Consider the following conversation that occurred much
later in the router-software design process:
Designer: “When the user clicks on the image of the router,

the context menu should animate outwards and to the right,
as though the user caused the menu to appear.”
Developer: “But if it animates to the right, it will cover

whatever content is there. Shouldn’t the user be able to see all
of the content on the screen?”
Designer: “Maybe, but it’s more important that the user feels
like he or she caused the menu to appear—it’s important that
we show a sense of causality on mouse-click.”
Developer: “But it’s going to cover things up. That seems

completely inefficient.”
Because the designer’s and developer’s frames are different,

they result in different practical design considerations. The
designer is pushing for a more aesthetically compelling ani-
mation that reinforces causality. The developer is more inter-
ested in presenting an uninterrupted set of content. In effect,
the designer is drawing on a frame of temporal aesthetics,
whereas the developer has framed the problem in a context of
utility.
The Importance of Models in Sensemaking

Sensemaking and framing can be enhanced and supported
through externalization and through representations.
Common to all methods of synthesis presented later in this
text is a “sense of getting it out” to identify and forge connec-
tions. This is an attempt to make obvious the sensemaking
conditions described earlier. Emphasis is placed on finding
relationships and patterns between elements and forcing an

external view of things. In all of the methods, it is less
important to be “accurate” and more important to give some
tangible form to the ideas, thoughts, and reflections. Once
externalized, the ideas become “real.” They become something
that can be discussed, defined, embraced, or rejected by any
number of people, and the ideas become part of a larger pro-
cess of synthesis. Essentially, sensemaking is an internal, per-
sonal process, whereas synthesis can be a collaborative,
external process.
In his landmark text Notes on the Synthesis of Form,
Christopher Alexander describes two major techniques for
learning to build new artifacts. The first is a master–appren-
tice model, where a new designer learns by being constantly
surrounded by a particular craft and ultimately acquires skills
through practice. The second learning technique occurs
through externalization, as the new designer “. . . tries, in some
degree, to make the rules explicit” (Alexander, 1964). In a
design problem, the rules are often implicit in the problem
and considered design constraints.
Constraints might be obvious, such as “you have this much
money to spend to solve the problem,” but frequently, a host of
much more subtle, and important, rules are deeply embedded
in the subject matter. A designer makes these explicit through
a model. Alexander explains that “what does make design a
problem in real cases is that we are trying to make a diagram
for forces whose field we do not understand,” that designers
often try to solve a design problem while simultaneously trying
to understand the design problem. Modeling delineates
between problem finding and problem solving, acting as a
form of problem understanding. Ultimately, this is the role of
synthesis: to create a stage for problem understanding.
A model is subjective and interpretative. As interaction
designer Hugh Dubberly explains, “Models help bridge the
gap between observing and making, between research com-
munities and design communities. Models are especially
important in interaction and service design” (Dubberly,
2009). He further describes a model as a conjecture acting as
a reasoned way of proposing how things might be. The con-
jecture is most useful when approached with an open mind
for change. A designer will find that a model offers the most

value when considered as an indication of thinking at a
moment in time, not as a finished artifact. In fact, a comparison
of an early model and a subsequent model can offer deep
insights into the thought process and rationale for various
design decisions.
Mental Models as a Specific Type

of Cognitive Representation
A mental model can be thought of as an inaccurate yet helpful
representation of how something in the world works.
Although the Dubberly and Alexander models described in
the previous section are often tangible (diagrammatic and
thus can be drawn on a piece of paper), mental models, as the
name implies, are stored in our memory. These models act as
the frame, usually when a designer approaches a complicated
system, in which to act and react.
Psychologist Kenneth Craik, one of the first to consider the
concept of mental models, describes how a mental model acts
as a posit of “what if ”—a point of departure, around which
multiple ideas can be considered. As he writes, if the person
“carries a ‘small-scale model’ of external reality and of his own
possible actions within his head, he is able to try out various
alternatives, conclude which is [the] best of them, react to
future situations before they arise . . .” (Craik, 1967). A mental
model is actually a way of understanding how things work and
exist in three dimensions and in the fourth dimension of time,
even if we cannot “picture” the thing in our mind.
Imagine a door lock. This is actually a fairly complex
mechanical system, and so it should be, because we depend on
it to keep important places and things private, safe, and secure.
Yet this complexity is obscured for most people, who have cre-
ated a mental model of how these items work. When most
people consider a lock mechanism (if they consider it at all),
they might think of the shape of the key, inverted. That is, “If I
place a key in a lock, there’s a similarly shaped hole that makes
room for the key. If the key and the hole match, the door opens,
and in I go.” This is technically and logically inaccurate, as a
series of tumblers, wedges, and other intricacies make a lock
and key work, yet the shorthand model allows us to go about

our lives without tending to the minutiae of devices and
systems. We can imagine why a key does not work and
construct—again, incorrectly—a view of how to fix it.
An engineer typically creates a mental model framed in
pragmatism and logic. He or she knows how things actually
function, so he or she views the world from that perspective.
In the same way, an environmentalist approaches the world
framed in sustainability, and a visual artist views the world
from an aesthetic perspective. Our ability to frame a problem,
and the mental models we create to cope with complexity, are
obviously intertwined and heavily dependent on our lives,
careers, knowledge, and abilities.
Philip Johnson-Laird references these types of models as
critical to our ability to reason. As he describes, “We use
perception, the meanings of words and sentences, the
significance of the propositions that they express, and our
knowledge. Indeed, we use everything we’ve got to think of
possibilities, and we represent each possibility in a mental
model of the world . . . a model isn’t an image, but the abstract
structure that underlies images and that represents contents
that we cannot visualize” ( Johnson-Laird, 2009).
As a more germane example, consider a designer working
through the synthesis phase of design. To develop an
innovative system for growing vegetables, the designer has
learned a great deal about lettuce through contextual research
with farmers. Now he is sketching his mental model of how
vegetables grow. If that model is legitimate, he understands
the relationship among sunlight, soil nutrients, and tempera-
ture, so he sketches something realistic (see Fig. 2.1).
Continuing from this sketch, the designer can develop a
number of ideas for enhancing plant growth. A standard rep-
resentation of a mental model may lead to a standard set of
outcomes.
But suppose the designer purposefully embraces the
following incorrect and incomplete mental model of causality:
“The farmers put the seeds in the ground, and there’s some
sort of reaction with the dirt. The better the seed is planted—
the more dirt that can touch the edges of the seed—the better
the reaction. When the farmer waters the seed, it’s a way of
getting more dirt to touch the seed. There seems to be an

Figure 2.1
Mental Models form during the
process of design.
opportunity here. I can design a system where dirt is packed

tightly around the seed and is constantly shifted to replace the
old dirt with new.”
The mental model seems plausible, and the designer is
able to temporarily suspend disbelief to see what happens.
The designer has honed in on causality (albeit logically inac-
curate causality) in his sketch: A lot of dirt touching a seed
leads to a big lettuce plant. Ideation can now occur again. The
designer can develop a number of new ideas for getting as
much dirt as possible to touch the seed (flattened seeds, a dirt
mover, etc.).
These ideas might offer inaccurate growing techniques,
and they simply might not work. But by temporarily
embracing an obviously incorrect mental model, the designer
has developed a new opportunity and space for design ideas
that otherwise would not have been considered. And these

new considerations can be then reintroduced into the more
mundane, “appropriate” design path.
The Nature of Patterns on Our Experiences

As designers become more seasoned, they build up a level of
experience and expertise that lets them act as though the
output is “intuitive.” They seem able to solve design problems
effortlessly. In fact, design never becomes effortless, but the
process of design becomes increasingly fluid and amorphous
as the designer becomes more capable, confident, and
reflective.
This is the role of experience in a field where every problem
is unique. Experience—the number and scope of design
problems the designer has previously encountered—plays a
critical role in developing design synthesis expertise. Rich
design experience affords the following five core benefits:
1. An experienced designer can generalize a design

problem to a “typical” design problem. He or she is
able to find patterns in the design problems she comes
across. Once a pattern has been implicitly identified,
the designer is able to generalize both the problem-
solving process and past solutions to this type of
problem.
2. An experienced designer can anticipate how the

problem will unfold and will react to various design
activities. This means that fruitless efforts are
minimized. By anticipating how they will play out, the
designer can pursue ineffective solutions with less
frequency and in less depth.
3. An experienced designer can anticipate how external

factors, such as client or stakeholder feedback and
changing market conditions, will affect a design
decision. By doing so, the designer can either mitigate
these factors or build time into the schedule to
respond effectively to them.

4. An experienced designer is faster at sketching,
modeling, and other methods that are critical for both
understanding and illustrating design synthesis to
other stakeholders. So he can move quickly from the
“mess” of research to the beginnings of a design
solution.
5. An experienced designer knows, implicitly, what to do

next rather than wasting time and effort fretting over
it. At a fundamental level, an experienced designer will
sketch the aforementioned models, without external
prompting.
All of these benefits create the perception of intuition, as a

designer’s activities then appear effortless and immediate. A
great deal of this is due to the highly subjective identification
of patterns: the ability to find repeated methods, processes,
and knowledge in a large set of data, and to abstract away the
specific differences.
Patterns contribute to our ability to make decisions, and
our language skills help us to recognize large patterns. These
patterns help designers make progress on complicated design
problems. Design patterns are both trends and common
approaches to particular design challenges. These patterns
can be large or small, general or specific, but they always illus-
trate something that has appeared in the world more than a
few times. As a general pattern, consumers are becoming sav-
vier with small-screen interfaces, due to their interactions
with ATMs and cell phones. As a more specific pattern, many
products are positioning media in a carousel metaphor; users
can “spin through” their media, as is the case with Apple’s cov-
erflow or HP’s TouchSmart. Both types of patterns represent
something repeated enough in popular design culture to have
affected the way people view and understand a product.
A pattern can be applied and connected with other design
elements to reach a new conclusion or change a design. In
that case, it provokes a new way of thinking. A pattern
identified in research acts as a design guideline or a constraint

to help shepherd further ideation. In both cases, the designer
must be able to match incomplete data in various contexts to
find commonalities, yet without strong or cohesive guidelines.
Simply, with few rules to define what is and is not considered
a pattern in design, the designer is left to subjectively
decide when enough commonality exists to call something
“patterned.”
Experience contributes to pattern generation, which, in
turn, drives successful design work and a more fluid process.

Chapter 3
Abductive Reasoning
Synthesis is an abductive sensemaking process. Abduction

can be thought of as the “step of adopting a hypothesis as
being suggested by the facts . . . a form of inference” (Peirce,
1998a). Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of
Management at the University of Toronto, has described this
as the “logic of what might be”—abduction is the argument to
the best explanation. It is the hypothesis that makes the most
sense given observed phenomenon or data and based on
prior experience. Abduction is a logical way of considering
inference or “best guess” leaps (Martin, 2009). To better
understand abduction, it is necessary to understand deduc-
tion and induction.
A valid deductive argument is one that logically guarantees
the truth of its conclusion, if the premises that are presented
are true. This form of logic is traditionally taught in mathe-
matics courses and manifested in logic proofs:
A is B.
All Bs are Cs.
A is, deductively, C.
This form of logic is self-contained, and any argument that

uses deduction cannot offer any new findings in the conclu-
sions—the findings are presented in the premises that hold
the argument to begin with. That is, A, B, and C all exist in the
presented premises.
As another example, I can say that “Google is a Web site” (A
is B). I can also say that “All Web sites can only be accessed
when the computer is connected to the Internet” (All Bs are
Cs). Deductively, then, “Google can only be accessed when the
computer is connected to the Internet” (A is, deductively, C).
If both initial statements are true, the conclusion is true,
too.
An inductive argument is one that offers sound evidence
that something might be true based on structured experience.
This form of logic is traditionally associated with scientific
inquiry:
Each time I do A under the same conditions, B occurs.
Inductively, the next time I do A under these conditions, B

will occur.
Subsequent experiences may prove this wrong, and thus

an inductive argument is one where the premises do not guar-
antee the truth of their conclusions. Like deduction, induc-
tion cannot offer any “new findings” contained within the
logic of the argument.
As an example, I note that “each time I visit Google when
I’m not connected to the Internet, it doesn’t work” (Each
time I do A under the same conditions, B occurs). Inductively,
I infer that “the next time I visit Google when I’m not con-
nected to the Internet, it won’t work” (The next time I do A
under these conditions, B will occur).
Abduction is where the magic happens.
Consider the following example:
If I do A, B occurs.
I’ve done something like A before, but the circumstances

weren’t exactly the same.
I’ve seen something like B before, but the circumstances

weren’t exactly the same.
I’m able to abduct that C is the reason B is occurring.
Unlike deduction or induction, abduction allows for the

creation of new knowledge and insight. C is introduced as a
best guess for why B is occurring, yet C is not part of the orig-
inal set of premises. And unlike deduction, but similar to
induction, the conclusions from an abductive argument might
turn out to be false, even if the premises are true.

As an example, I note that “if I visit Google when I’m not
connected to the Internet, I would expect that it wouldn’t
work. But one time, it does! I see a list of only a few results,
but they aren’t very thorough” (If I do A, B occurs). I’ve vis-
ited Google before when I wasn’t connected to the Internet
(something like A), but I wasn’t sitting on a subway car (the
circumstances weren’t exactly the same). I’ve gotten Google
results before (something like B), but they were more thor-
ough and more numerous (the circumstances weren’t exactly
the same). I’m able to abduct that the subway is somehow
acting as an intranet service to present me with incomplete
data access, giving me “enough,” but not “everything” (I’m
able to abduct that C is the reason B is occurring).
Design synthesis is fundamentally a way to apply abductive
logic within the confines of a design problem (Coyne, 1988). The
various constraints of the problem begin to act as logical
premises, and the designer’s work and life experiences, and
her ease and flexibility with logical leaps based on inconclu-
sive or incomplete data, begin to shape the abduction.
Abduction acts as intuition and is directly aided and assisted
by experience of any design or cultural patterns. As described
by Peirce, “The abductive suggestion comes to us like a flash.
It is an act of insight, although extremely fallible insight. It is
true that the different elements of the hypothesis were in our
minds before; but it is the idea of putting together what we
had never before dreamed of putting together which flashes
the new suggestion before our contemplation” (Peirce,
1988b).
The earlier example—Google on the subway, working
offline—offers a new idea of a way of providing subway riders
access to small bits of data without installing expensive
cabling or a lot of equipment. It might not be a great or tech-
nically feasible idea. But it is a new and insightful idea, one that
came from a process of abductive and hypothesis-driven
exploration, not from the original constraints.
Johnson-Laird has indicated that in the context of genera-
tive and creative problem solving, the insight is not developed
in a “flash” at all. Instead it comes through a four-step process
whose goal appears instant when achieved but is really
reached through a formal and methodical (but internal)
thought process. This process looks like this:
1. The current problem-solving strategy (almost always

inductive or deductive in nature) fails to yield a
solution, given the existing constraints.
2. There is a tacit consideration of new constraints.
3. The constraints are relaxed (or changed) in a new way,

thus broadening the problem space and allowing for
further consideration.
4. Many changes in constraints lead nowhere, but, with

perseverance, a change may be made that leads at once
to a solution of the problem. ( Johnson-Laird, 2005)
These four steps can be made more obvious through the

design methods found in later sections of this text. Step
number three is critical: Constraints, things that have been
established as either implicit or explicit boundary conditions,
are changed. In the context of a business problem, this might
mean that budget is increased, delivery platform is changed,
or features are added or removed.
Both Peirce and Johnson-Laird agree that abductive rea-
soning is related to insight and creative problem solving, in
that this form of reasoning creates something new. Researchers
Hideaki Takeda, Akira Tsumaya, and Tetsuo Tomiyama have
formalized this idea in their description of knowledge inte-
gration in the synthesis process:
. . . the aim of synthesis is to create objects having necessary

characteristics. In this case, it is not required that
characteristics are universal and minimum, rather they should
not be. In order to capture human desire for objects,
characteristics should be as rich as possible to represent
various desires. Thus requirements for knowledge for synthesis
are not universality and minimality but rather individuality
and diversity. The last statement indicates that the assumption
underlying the traditional logical approach is not appropriate
because it is to capture our world with minimum and
universal axioms. (Takeda, Tsumaya, & Tomiyama, 2007)

Synthesis, then, is about creating a quantity of newness,
where each new idea is individually unique. Roger Martin
(2009) agrees, describing a knowledge funnel that exists as
the environment for business innovation. This funnel
describes the space in which decisions of “newness” occur in
a business context. In this space, design ideas move from mys-
tery, to heuristic, to algorithm, and finally to code. In the con-
text of design and business, Martin has found that designers
prefer to live in the “mystery” phase, producing as many new
and diverse ideas to address the mystery as possible.
Everything begins as a mystery, and through a process of
questioning, such as “Why do apples fall and birds don’t,” we
gain a first level of understanding. We develop a heuristic, or
a general way of thinking about things. We formalize this into
a predictive-based rule—an algorithm—and finally, we arrive
at a place where we can describe this rule in enough detail to
automate fully and to capitalize on the rule and the outcome
of the rule-based process.
By contrast, business owners focus on this rule-based pro-
cess or code and find the most excitement in moving toward
reliability and repeatability. At the beginning of the funnel, the
goal is to develop ideas that embrace, as Tomiyama et al.
describe, “individuality and diversity.” At the end of the funnel,
the goal is to have identified a single or core idea and formal-
ized it in such a way that a machine can duplicate it. The goal is
to develop something “minimal and universal” (see Fig. 3.1).
Mystery Heuristic Algorithm Code
Figure 3.1
The Knowledge Funnel.
That creates a gap between the mysterious dreaming that
designers appreciate and the proof business owners demand.
Design cannot prove the solutions to the mysteries because
solutions are only demonstrable and testable, not provable.
The idea of proof relies on and insists on both inductive and
deductive reasoning, which wipes out new and innovative
thinking. The form of abductive thinking described earlier by
Peirce, and echoed by Johnson-Laird, lives at the beginning
of the knowledge funnel. It acts as a means of understanding
the mystery and forming heuristics of ideas. This form of
abductive thinking is design synthesis.

Section Two
Design Synthesis in a
Business Context
Chapter 4
The Value of Synthesis
in Driving Innovation
As the word innovation has crept into the vocabularies of

executives, so too has the word design. The search for the keys
to innovation has made increasingly clear that both “design
thinking” and ethnography play a critical role in the larger
context of the design process. In this context, businesses are
increasingly realizing that not just quantitative research but
also qualitative research combined with creative thinking can
lead to new and interesting ideas for products, services, and
systems.
Observational research is the type of qualitative design
research often performed at the beginning of the design pro-
cess. This research involves observing real people, in their
environments of work and play, as they go about performing a
task, achieving a goal, or having an experience. Pragmatic
design research grew out of information technology and soft-
ware design, as researchers observed people using complex
computer systems in an effort to increase the usability of these
systems. Other qualitative research methods have latched
onto the successes of the social sciences in understanding cul-
ture. Ethnography involves immersion in the culture in which
people spend their time, a method that is much less goal
directed and might simply offer a topic statement—the “culture
of entertainment,” for example—as a starting point.
Design research is different from marketing research. The
goal in design research is to find inspiration for design,
whereas the goal in marketing research is to predict the behav-
ior of a larger group. Unfortunately, large businesses nearly
always lose this critical distinction in the similar terminology
and approaches. Consider the core similarities and distinc-
tions listed in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Core Research Similarities and Distinctions
Design Research Marketing Research

Focuses on people Focuses on people
Can be qualitative or quantitative Can be qualitative or quantitative
Borrows from the social and behavioral sciences Borrows from the social and behavioral sciences
Attempts to understand culture. Looks at the Attempts to predict behavior. Looks at what
styles, words, tools, and workarounds people people say they would do, or what they
use in an effort to inspire design. actually do, in an effort to predict what they
would do in a new situation
Celebrates the unique and peculiar. The rare or Avoids the unique and peculiar. The goal is to
obscure in observations can lead to a new or understand mass responses; outliers are
interesting design idea. frequently ignored.
Avoiding bias is irrelevant. The goal is not to be Avoiding bias is critical. The statistical
objective but instead to be rigorous. analyses of data require an objective point
of view.
To witness the ambiguity about research in the context of

a business problem, consider the real-world example that
follows:
A design team is writing a proposal for a $200,000, 12-week

program to develop innovative digital-file storage. A third of
the time will be spent conducting research, and the team
decides to observe how eight people work and document that
research through transcription. From this research, the team
will produce a list of key insights and use those insights to
generate preliminary design ideas.
When the designer presents the proposal to the client, the

following dialogue occurs:
Prospective Client: “So, I see here that 4 weeks—or about

$65,000—is going to research. We’ve already done a lot of
research. We have a great document that we can give you. It’s
about 60 pages long with lots of charts and graphs. It
describes the segments we are targeting and has responses to a
great survey we conducted with thousands of people. So let’s
take this section out completely.”

Creative Director: “Although your document sounds very
interesting, the type of research we do is different. We will look
for some of the nuances in the work environment, learn about
the culture of digital storage in the workplace, and really get to
know how people think about digital file storage.”
Prospective Client: “Your proposal shows you’re only going to

look at eight people, though. We’ve done a questionnaire with
thousands of online respondents, so we feel pretty confident
that we know what people want.”
Creative Director: “Understood, but it’s a really critical part

of our process . . .”
Prospective Client: “I would really like to see this proposal

rewritten without that $65,000 in it.”
Both sides are right, but they are right about different
things. The client’s questionnaire data—if it was collected
properly—can indicate a set of statistically relevant predic-
tions about what a larger population might do. But this data
will not describe what to make, how to make it, or what the
interactions and experiences should feel like. Because both sets
of activities are called research, the client is quick to dismiss
this seemingly duplicative work as a waste of time and money.
Then the designer’s difficult job becomes to educate and
evangelize the unique role of design research. Designers may
succeed in educating the client by showing samples from pre-
vious projects (and highlighting how research was conducted)
and will sometimes show diagrammatic representations of
how the research data will be transformed directly into the
final product.
An unfortunate side effect of this dialogue is that unless
the education succeeds, the designer will likely still conduct
the research but will not charge for it. This will diminish the
value of design research on that particular project and, over
time, design research as a whole.
Jan Chipchase, a design researcher at frog design, com-
monly conducts research without a particular project or
product in mind (and frequently without the challenges of
the evangelizing described earlier). Chipchase was asked
by frog to travel the world, observing people and their

communication behavior. He was not looking at traditional
usability, such as the “ease of use” of specific products or the
number of taps it takes to dial a number. Nor was he focused
on marketing metrics or the search for “innovation” or
“insight.” Instead, Chipchase worked to understand how
communication fits into culture, be it augmented by technol-
ogy like a cell phone or facilitated by a human mechanism like
dance, speech, or writing.
Whether the research is pragmatic—as in looking for
usability enhancements—or conceptual—as it was for
Chipchase—the philosophy of design research is the same:
to learn from people and to emphasize people, rather than
technology or business. As an example, consider a design-re-
search program focused on understanding the social relation-
ships between teens and mobility. A researcher could
approach this problem from three immersion perspectives by
immersing herself in the following:
1. A group of teens who frequently travel a great deal or

commute to school and then to their jobs. The
researcher would try to understand the way teens keep
in touch over distances, and she would learn about the
language and the feelings about staying in touch over
distances.
2. The technology used by teens, by looking at their

various computers, phones, and other technological
devices. The researcher would try to understand the
pros and cons of various existing tools, and she would
learn about the attitudes toward these devices, the
most and least frequently used features, and the
qualitative feelings about the various tools.
3. The business of mobile communication and

networking, by looking at the services and capabilities
of leading companies such as Facebook or AT&T. The
researcher would learn about pricing models, tiered
offerings, branded services, and the other packages.
In the first perspective, the researcher will learn about poten-

tial for the future state. She will see problems as opportunities,

and findings will emphasize behavior. Behavioral opportuni-
ties may exist in the following areas:
• Technology (the devices the teens own)
• Style (the clothing the teens wear)
• Identity (the language the teens use)
• Infrastructure (the transportation methods the

teens use)
This perspective is broad. The researcher can learn about

the topic from a holistic sense, looking both directly at the
problem of “social relationships and mobility,” as well as
around the problem.
In the second perspective, the researcher will learn about
the current state, from a realistic standpoint. The word realistic
implies that the artifacts being investigated have conformed
to the realities of production. Their constraints are usually
pragmatic (“At the date of production, a smaller phone could
not fit all of these electronics. No matter how much we want
it to be smaller, it cannot be”). The researcher will gain a great
deal of knowledge around the following areas:
• Usability of existing software, hardware, and
services
• Frequency of use of existing software, hardware, and
services
• Emotional resonance of existing software, hardware,
and services
This is useful information, particularly when attempting to

fix and refine an existing solution with a “follow-on” release.
The perspective is narrow because the researcher focuses on
particular devices and the software functionality afforded by
those devices.
In the third perspective, the researcher will learn implicitly
about the current state, from a subjective standpoint. A particular
service is offered for free or for a cost because a business
decided it would be so (“We can offer this service for free in
order to build brand equity, which is worth more to us than

the amount we could have made from charging for the service
itself ”). The researcher will be able to gain a great deal of
knowledge around the following areas:
• Pricing, feature, and service structures other

companies have deemed important
• The way various artifacts, services, and systems have

been positioned in the marketplace
• The elements that have become ubiquitous to a

particular business context
This is useful information when attempting to package

and sell an already designed product, service, or system. The
perspective is narrow. The researcher focuses on particular
pricing structures, service offerings, and capability models
from various competitors.
Each of these research methods focuses on a different
aspect of an artifact, yet only the first—focusing on human
behavior—emphasizes opportunity and potential. A focus on
technology or product is destined to be constrained by real-
ism (e.g., What can we do, given current abilities?). A focus
on business or market is destined to be constrained by prec-
edent (e.g., What are others doing, and how are they doing
it?). In this way, design research that focuses on human behav-
ior in a broad sense—not on a particular object or service—is
the most effective at discovering data for innovation.
Figure 4.1
Various Perspectives Feeding Design.

What Is Innovation?
Innovation has been used so liberally to define an entire
profession that one is hard pressed to find a definition of the
word itself. It is best used as either a simple qualifier that can
be used to describe one facet of design—newness—or as a
title for a robust and entirely different field.
Researchers Craig Vogel, Jonathan Cagan, and Peter
Boatwright use an action-oriented context for their defini-
tion: Innovation “extends beyond invention of new technol-
ogy and includes a thoughtful and insightful application,
delivery, extension, or recombination of existing technolo-
gies . . . the key is that an innovation is a valued leap from the
viewpoint of consumers whether or not it is incremental from
the producer’s standpoint” (Vogel, Cagen, & Boatwright,
2005). This definition puts the consumer at the center of the
“innovation universe,” and so it seems logical to then empha-
size the value of design research. It is important to note, how-
ever, two major problems with viewing design research as the
“keys to innovation.”
First, an innovative product is not simply new; it must be
new and successful in the marketplace. This means that a new
idea that fails—for example, Betamax or the Apple Newton—
cannot be considered truly innovative. This is not simply a
matter of semantics. Design-research methods will help a
product team find the newness, but they will not help bring
that newness to market. For this, traditional forms of design,
engineering, supply-chain management, quality, and other
production techniques are necessary, as are traditional forms
of marketing, advertising, and distribution.
Second, and more important, design research presents
only an opportunity, but it does not lead directly to the new
idea or innovative concept. Most businesses understand how
to conduct research (either quantitative or qualitative, and
often marketing driven but occasionally user centered). Fewer
businesses understand how to design something. But it is the
rarest of companies that can continually drive innovative
design practices and actually tie the newness to the research
that was conducted. The link between initial investigative
efforts and subsequent creative efforts is rarely, if ever,
emphasized.

Design Synthesis Links Innovation
Research and Design
Design synthesis is the link between the type of behavioral
research described earlier—the potential for the future
state—and the creation of something new. It is the most criti-
cal part of the creative process of design. Yet many designers
rely only on their own limited experiences in approaching
design synthesis.
In the generative stages of a design problem, designers
often turn to pencil sketching on paper to think through the
various nuances. For example, to visualize the appropriate
form of a new touch-based cell phone, an industrial designer
will sketch in three dimensions and in orthographic (or plan)
view, often laying ideas on top of one another and switching
between a stylistic approach to a more pragmatic, compo-
nent-based investigation (looking at the actual elements that
might need to be contained within the phone, such as a
screen, a keypad, and so forth). At this ideation stage, the
most high-level design problems have been defined, so the
designer is problem solving. That is, the designer knows what
he is creating—a phone, and not a toaster or a printer—and
he knows the general constraints of the object (it has a certain-
size touch screen and requires a certain-size battery to power
it, and so forth).
But consider the previous stage, in which the high-level
design problems are defined or identified. Why isn’t the
designer creating a toaster, for example? It may be that the
company in question has a high degree of competency and
history in creating mobile phones. Or the company may
have developed a new technological approach to building
low-cost touch screens, so it is trying to find new applications
for it. Or it may be that the company has identified, through
research, a new opportunity for producing a touch-based
phone.
Where do these discussions happen, and who has them?
Typically, these types of considerations are made by directors
of marketing and technology. These organizational structures
control a big budget, which they (often independently) assign
to whichever projects and programs they deem to be most

strategic. Once they have made the decision, a product team
is assembled. Eventually the product “trickles down” to the
designer, who then begins to sketch what the item might look
like.
But with the recent popularity of the phrases “design
thinking” and “innovation,” designers have been asked to par-
ticipate in these strategic conversations. Designers are increas-
ingly expected to discuss not just how to solve a problem but
also which problems to consider solving. They are increas-
ingly pressured to speak with clarity about product launches,
strategic product road mapping, competitive marketplace
trends, short- and long-term revenue opportunities, partner-
ships and sponsorships, and other issues related to the
business of design.
This presents a great opportunity for designers to move
from a tactical role to a strategic role, where they are valued
not only for their ability to produce but also for their ability to
think and analyze. Yet even at these more fundamental levels
of a design problem, there is an implicit expectation that the
designer is designing—producing things that are visual and
tangible, that trigger additional discussion and that evoke
emotive responses. Essentially, if a designer is to enter the
boardroom, she is expected to bring something unique to the
boardroom discussions.
What are these unique things? What does the designer do
or make while attempting to find and understand problems at
a strategic level?
Design synthesis generally describes this aspect of design,
where the designer is not yet solving a problem but is still
doing, and making, in an attempt to understand complexity.
Synthesis is an intellectual approach to creativity, and it can
offer a rationalization for repeated business success and a set
of tools for moving from research to specific and actionable
design ideas. Because synthesis is tied to logical processes of
managing complexity, it can be communicated throughout
an organization and used to substantiate the seemingly
“magical” world of design and design thinking.
A designer attempting to produce an innovative design
will conduct research focusing on the experiential, emotional,

and personal aspects of culture. This research will describe an
opportunity—design research acts as problem finding. The
research findings may be captured in PowerPoint presenta-
tions or described on a whiteboard. Either way, the research
has allowed the design team to gather data within a constrained
problem space.
Design is that act of problem solving—of appropriating
formal qualities into a new design idea that fulfills the stated
criteria and adds value to the human condition. Design syn-
thesis, then, will translate the opportunity into specific design
criteria, or a set of elements that must be present to afford a
cohesive and concrete design. The synthesis will describe the
solution; design synthesis is the process of problem under-
standing. Although data gesture toward an opportunity, data
are frequently thick and convoluted, overwhelming and
incomplete. The data alone lack contextualized meaning, and
so it is difficult to decode data in their “raw” state. Synthesis is
a sensemaking process that helps the designer move from
data to information, and from information to knowledge.
- ?!
Figure 4.2
Problem Finding, Understanding, and
Solving.

Chapter 5
The Culture of Synthesis
Simply put, synthesis is a spark. It is the ability for the human

mind to grasp multiple, often incongruent and even competing
ideas, and to manipulate them—at once, and in parallel—
into something amazing. Synthesis allows for multiple
hypotheses, ideas, themes, patterns, or trends to be mapped
and diagrammed, and consumed and explored. It is a process
of judging, yet it celebrates the cultural nuances that form the
judgment. Synthesis is elusive, yet is not magical—it only
feels that way because its output is new, exciting, untamed,
and full of potential.
Creating the spark of synthesis requires a constant
evolution of ideas through an informed trial and error, and
the creation of form where there was none. But this presents
a conundrum: When design is found in the context of busi-
ness, the oversized external constraints quickly overwhelm
the space in which creativity can occur. These external
constraints include billability, deadlines, or resourcing. While
some designers can push past these, even incorporate them in
their understanding of a design problem, others allow these
to chip away at their creativity. The lack of inclusion or appro-
priate time, or the “just get it done” attitude, forces the good
to become the quick, with sloppy results that lack a sense of
honesty, passion, or completeness.
In the past few years, a proliferation of companies, Web
sites, and articles have claimed to improve a company’s ability
to be creative or, even better, to innovate. These resources
commonly recommend brainstorming, carrying a notebook,
and prolifically reading, yet none of these resources ever
describe how to gain the motivation to be creative. It is as
though they assume that the right mixture of activities leads
directly to creative output. It is commonly understood that

the passion and fire of creativity have to come from within,
and yet the burdens of beginning, and finding the energy and
patience to see creative ideas through to fruition, are often
what can stop the creative individual from executing at all. In
fact, if we break the problem of creativity into two parts, we
can begin to see a very obvious disconnect between having
creative ideas and creating things.
As business owners follow the buzz of innovation as a
meme to replace quality, they subscribe to literature that rec-
ommends a number of pragmatic steps to increase the creative
mindset of employees. These include the following:
• Building a culture that is forgiving of mistakes

• Encouraging fun, humor, and a playful environment
• Supporting business decisions that have ethnographic

rationalization
Yet good ideas come through a number of sources, all of

which are related to humanity. Whether the source is ethnog-
raphy, popular culture, or even the humanitarian realness of
the world around, new insights into old problems come
through observation and synthesis, through conversation and
discourse.
But within these points lies a subtle trap. The designer
needs to explore the world and accumulate patterns, drawing
connections in real life and empathizing with the richness of
humanity. She needs to try and fail, to play, joke, and jest. Yet
while the designer explores, learns, and plays, she is not
designing in the generally understood definition of the word.
Design requires the production of something with some sort
of form (even considered loosely, as in the design of systems,
and services, and political systems). Simply “having a good
time,” “watching people,” or “thinking really hard” does not
constitute this form giving, and although potentially genera-
tive, the lack of tangible output hinders the practicing
designer.
This illustrates the dilemma of the professional designer:
A designer is judged on his ability to produce, but one cannot
observe production during idle reflection on culture. Those
who are not producing—or, in the case of a design consultancy,

billing their necessary hours, are a detriment to the
productivity of the studio and are ultimately let go. Yet an
underlying and obvious demand is that the designers who bill
their time are designing something with both purpose and
appropriateness.
If design requires reflection and absorption of culture,
both the studio-consultancy system and the corporate design
system are set up to encourage a failure on both accounts for
designers who are not taught or allowed to challenge con-
straints, act in a playful manner, experience flow, and use
visual thinking as their primary mechanism of thought and
communication. This is the culture of synthesis, and it is a
culture that can be fostered and nurtured. The sections that
follow describe these qualities that are instrumental to driving
innovation and supporting design synthesis.
Challenging Constraints
and Questioning Purpose
Although the word constraint has a negative tone, constraints
are one of the central tools for managing an otherwise over-
whelming design activity. Designer Charles Eames constantly
referred to constraints as the most important aspect of creating
a successful design. As he describes, “. . . here is one of the few
effective keys to the design problem—the ability of the designer
to recognize as many of the constraints as possible—his will-
ingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints—
the constraints of price, of size, of strength, balance, of surface,
of time, etc.; each problem has its own peculiar list” (Neuhart
& Neuhart, 1989). Eames is describing the qualities that con-
tain a design problem, that mark its beginning and ending, and
that illustrate to what extent the designer can affect change.
Essentially, Eames is indicating a core distinction between
design and art. For all practical purposes, art has no external
constraints. The artist selects the constraints, ignoring those
that she feels are inappropriate and embracing those that help
tell a story, make meaning, or create a particular aesthetic. But
the designer cannot ignore or embrace the borders and
guidelines on a whim; she must meet a deadline, present a
particular message, or solve a given problem.

When applied during the spark of synthesis, constraints
are made explicit. This subtle and simple point is often
daunting to a novice designer because the most important
constraints that are to be made explicit have yet to be defined.
They do not come from the project brief or even the manager.
In most complicated design problems, the client provides a
core set of constraints, often called “requirements” and pre-
sented in a document in the project brief. As Henrik Gedenryd
describes in his thesis on the cognition of design thinking,
“. . . constraints are regarded as given to the designer, as part
of the requirements specification, before design begins.
Moreover, they make the designer’s task harder by placing
restrictions on the available options. In reality, however, not
all constraints originate strictly in the requirements specifica-
tion . . . designers frequently impose constraints that are
neither necessary nor objectively valid” (Gedenryd, 1998).
Clients provide constraints, but the most useful and
actionable ones come from within the designer. For example,
consider a designer who is developing a Web property that
will offer streaming video content. The client has specified
some requirements: the site needs to offer different content
to paid members and visitors, and the content needs to be
presented in HD quality. These requirements act as prelimi-
nary constraints. The designer begins to research video con-
sumption on the Web, first through secondary research and
competitive analysis and next by observing people using
online media sites. This research produces a great deal of data,
which contains additional constraints. Yet no individual user
said, “Your design must allow me to easily embed this video
on my Facebook profile” or “Your design must allow me to set
parental controls.” Instead, within all of the aforementioned
research, these constraints lie hidden.
A designer may have watched someone viewing a clip, and
the viewer may have said, “My friend Jimmy would think this
is hilarious”; the designer may have watched another user alt-
tab between a video site and Facebook; or the designer may
have shared content with his own friends. All of these
experiences point toward an implicit connection—video
sharing through direct embedding—and this becomes a
constraint or an opportunity for design.

The designer may have observed users at a coffee shop
entertaining their children with a netbook. The designer may
have just read an article about TV ratings. Or the designer may
have personal experience of coming across undesirable “mature”
content. All of these experiences also point toward an implicit
connection—parental controls with default settings—and this,
too, becomes a constraint or an opportunity for design.
In both cases, the constraint is implicit in the data, yet
once it becomes explicit through action, the designer can
embrace it as objective criteria for success. When the client
asked the designer to create something, the something was
vague and amorphous. These new elements add structure and
tangibility to the creation and become points of departure for
the creation of the site.
Constraints are flexible over the length of a project. Like
other things that flex, however, they will snap if pushed too
hard. In addition to designer-imposed constraints, clients also
offer prescriptive boundaries around design projects. Client
constraints can be selectively ignored only when the resulting
design is successful, and that’s a Catch-22 for designers.
Obviously, designers cannot guarantee success, even when the
work is informed by intuition, yet designers also cannot know
whether they will succeed until they try. An experienced
designer develops an ability to play the politician—to explain
away why constraints were bent or broken—in an effort to
bring a design idea to fruition and allow it to be tested.
Constraints present an interesting client challenge; they
act as guidelines, not rules. Consider the following dialogue
between a designer and a client concerning a Web-based
flow:
Designer: “This is such a critical moment in the checkout flow

that I highlighted the area in red and made the action
abilities a bit larger than on other pages.”
Client: “But that doesn’t fit within the parameters of the

templates we’ve established and everyone has signed off on. It’s
different from the other pages. Won’t it be inconsistent?”
Designer: “Yes, it is inconsistent. But I think, at this part of

the flow, it’s important to call it out as separate.”

Client: “I’m confused. When we developed the templates, you
told me consistency was important. Now you are telling me
it’s not important. Which is it?”
This is a difficult question for the designer to answer

because the client is entirely right. Consistency is important,
but as it is a constraint, it can be selectively ignored. However,
the designer needs to understand how to describe this inconsis-
tency, often by showing the benefits and user value of such a
level of subjectivity. Unfortunately, this takes a substantial
amount of effort, and it is often easier to simply revert to more
accepted, “scientific” approaches: consistency, linearity, and a
rigid embracement of constraints and requirements.
Being Playful
The ability to “be playful” is critical to achieve deep and
meaningful synthesis of disparate ideas. Playfulness can be
thought of as a casual, almost apathetic, work perspective, but
the apathy is to the immediate significance of a particular
design move, not to the long-term consequences of a particu-
lar action. That is, one might playfully suggest a design
decision that is out of the question, and an objective view-
point would consider this a form of destructive or deviant
behavior. Yet this ability to suspend caring—to be apathetic
in the moment but care passionately about the outcome—is
critical to finding meaning in the chaos of design research.
To understand what is meant by “play” in design, it is
useful to describe what is not meant by this word. When con-
sidering a playful environment, many immediately think of
Nerf darts flying over a design studio, with twenty-some-
things playing video games and sitting in beanbags. This
unfortunate representation of the dot-com boom-and-bust
era has tainted the notion of a creative environment by imply-
ing that being creatively playful requires a sense of slapstick
humor and a lack of focus.
In fact, being playful is much more of a cultural mindset
than a cultural physicality. Playful approaches to design can be
found in the most boring of physical environments, simply
because the administrative powers have allowed and

encouraged people to explore, break the rules, and reject the
“way things are normally done.” Thus, playfulness in design
has little to do with toys, props, or even physical environment
and everything to do with the established political and cul-
tural constraints.
To hold a playfully deviant point of view in the context of
a serious design discussion allows a designer to explore diver-
gent ideas, temporarily move the problem constraints, and
expand the boundaries of what might be considered “appro-
priate” design decisions. Consider this example, taken from a
real design consultancy that was brainstorming features for a
real mobile-phone application:
Designer 1: I think our solution has to take advantage of

GPS because location is so critical on a mobile. It’s like . . .
Designer 2: Yeah, since it knows where you are all the time, it
could let everyone know . . .
Designer 3: It could post your movement during the day and

start to learn about you . . .
Designer 1: Yeah, finding a way to show where you go all the

time . . .
Designer 2 [laughing]: Perfect to find the cheating boyfriend!
Designer 3 [also laughing]: You could set alerts, like “If you
were in her house for more than 5 minutes . . .”
Designer 1: Nice, the “Catch Your Husband in the Act” mode.

[Writes it on the whiteboard.]
Designer 2 [with a thoughtful look on her face]: What if we

overlaid everyone’s cheating to find the hussy of the
neighborhood?
Designer 3: Nice, we could start to see location patterns, of

which houses are getting the most traffic at weird hours
of the day . . .
During this brief exchange, the designers explored

what would obviously be a poor feature to include in a
mass-produced product and an impossible feature to present

this way to a client or executive sponsor. Yet the designers
appear to seriously consider the feature, even giving it a name
and writing it on the whiteboard. The designers have tempo-
rarily pushed the boundaries of what is “acceptable” in a prod-
uct and have landed on an interesting new idea—the overlay
of traffic to illustrate larger patterns of use. In fact, this idea—
removed from the larger “Catch Your Husband in the Act”
feature—finds its way into the actual product, allowing users
to aggregate nightlife traffic to understand where interesting
or fun events are drawing a crowd.
This exchange is typical of divergent thinking in a brain-
storming context, and it relies on two main ideas. The first is
that the designers feel comfortable enough with each other to
propose outlandish, even offensive ideas that they logically
know will never make it to market. They need to understand
each other enough to embrace this type of play, and they need
to see this type of thought as a competency, not as a disrup-
tion. To put a “crazy” or “bad” idea out in the world is to open
yourself to criticism and ridicule, yet had Designer 2 not felt
comfortable saying out loud, “Perfect to find the cheating
boyfriend!” Designer 3 would not have had an insight about
pattern finding. Imagine the awkward silence if the designers
had not been at ease with each other.
The second enabling idea is that the company at which
the designers work has established a culture that sees the
value in this type of discussion, rather than writing it off as a
“waste of time” or a “bad use of resources.” During the earlier
conversation, the designers were not answering e-mail, par-
ticipating in a conference call, sitting at their desks, attending
a formal meeting, or explicitly generating revenue. Not only
that, but they were coming up with ideas that almost never
would end up in the final product. When viewed through
only a short-term lens of management, this is a “bad use of
time.” To understand the value of this type of playful think-
ing, one needs to take a longer view of product development.
Unfortunately, this longer view is rarely afforded to most
middle management in large corporations, and so a
conversation like the aforementioned one is not likely to
take place.

Alex Osborn, arguably the inventor of “brainstorming” as
a technique, has been quoted as saying, “It is easier to tone
down a wild idea than to think up a new one.” As Osborn
describes, brainstorming is a method of generating as many
ideas as possible. The goal is not, as is popularly applied, to
come up with “the best” idea. In fact, Osborn’s formal method
permits no judgment during the actual “storming”; only after
numerous ideas have been developed does the group prune
and qualify them. In this way, playful ideas like the one men-
tioned earler are encouraged, and the cultural attitude toward
idea generation is supportive and receptive (Osborn, 1963).
Psychologist Joy Paul Guilford formalized Osborn’s views
by coining the phrase “divergent thinking” as a cognitive psy-
chology phenomenon. Guilford recognized that intellect is
multidimensional, and that some people are better at think-
ing abductively (and broadly), while others are better at
thinking deductively (and narrowly). It seems that, at one
point, nearly everyone was capable of abductive thinking as a
default manner of looking at the world. Epistemologist Jean
Piaget’s constructivist theory implicitly accepts that a child
actively learns through a form of divergent thinking and play,
and Montessori education formally embraces this idea that
physical play translates into intellectual progress. By contrast,
rote methods of learning emphasize an outcome rather than a
process. It might be only through these methods that most
people have learned to focus on a singular “right” answer
instead of thinking of multiple ideas.
The notion of being playful is to appreciate and encourage
divergent, abductive thinking and to encourage the shifting,
flexing, and removing of constraints and the exploring of
“what-if ” scenarios; that is, dream states. Our lives, jobs, and
compensation are so frequently tied to rational thought that
we have often forgotten how to actively dream, yet these
dreams—the ability to generate ideas, outlandish or other-
wise—are at the core of design innovation. Design synthesis
embraces this divergent dreaming.
Author Edward de Bono taps into the divergent nature of
play with his “six thinking hats” method of creativity. De Bono
asks that designers embrace six ways of thinking by putting

on (literally or metaphorically) six different colored hats,
each representing a different way of approaching new ideas:
1. White hat—neutral and objective, concerned with

facts and figures
2. Red hat—the emotional view

3. Black hat—careful and cautious, the “devil’s
advocate” hat
4. Yellow hat—sunny and positive
5. Green hat—associated with fertile growth, creativity,

and new ideas
6. Blue hat—cool, the color of the sky, and above

everything else, the organizing hat
As de Bono explains, the green hat is for lateral thinking, a
phrase he developed to describe “pattern switching in an
asymmetric patterning system.” The green thinking hat allows
people to break out of their understanding of what is and what
should be and consider what might be—through humor and
play. De Bono goes on to describe “a very close relationship
between the mechanisms of humor and the mechanisms of lat-
eral thinking. Both depend on the asymmetric nature of the pat-
terns of perception. This is the basis of the sudden jump or insight
after which something becomes obvious” (de Bono, 1999).
Our ability to be playful—even if only temporarily—is
critical to developing new ideas, allowing them to live long
enough to engage this pattern switching, and to cultivate even
more ideas.
Experiencing Flow
Although psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was not the
first to observe that artists, designers, and other creative folks
engage in a type of meditative state when they make things,
he was instrumental in carving out a particular area of cogni-
tive psychology called “flow.” According to Csikszentmihalyi,
flow is an optimal experience achieved during creativity
that is an “automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of

consciousness” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). This optimal expe-
rience is one that can be identified in art, design, writing,
cooking, sports, and even driving—any activity that demands
a sense of craft, expertise, and ability to master. Csikszentmihalyi
defines four specific attributes of the flow experience that are
central to a discussion of synthesis. These attributes describe
the ideal conditions for finding the interpretative “spark” of
making meaning out of complicated data.
1. There is immediate feedback to one’s actions. Synthesis,

when externalized, creates a constant conversation
where each “move” illustrates a new state. Compare
this to attempting to synthesize large quantities of data
in the head. While one might be able to combine,
rearrange, and try new organizational techniques
implicitly, the lack of immediate feedback makes it
difficult to understand when progress has been made.
Additionally, the feedback is quickly and implicitly
critiqued, and corrected. Csikszentmihalyi describes
that “in a flow experience we know how well we are
doing. The musician hears right away whether the note
played is the one.” Similarly, in a synthesis exercise, a
designer sees immediately whether a move is
“the one.”
2. Action and awareness are merged. Synthesis requires

that a designer attend to the subject matter at hand
completely. Practically, this requires a room with no
distractions, a blatant rejection of e-mail, a turning
off of mobile phones. The problems and realities of
“real life” need to be temporarily ignored to permit
immersion in the problem space. Then actions can be
performed in the context of the gathered data, and
not negatively impacted by people coming and
going, or by meetings or conference calls. In
addition, actions are made with an expert
confidence. The designer is not held back by a lack of
skill with a particular tool. The tool acts as an
extension of the mind, limited only by the interim
translation of the hands or eyes.

3. There is no worry of failure. As Csikszentmihalyi
describes, “While in flow, we are too involved to be
concerned with failure.” To some degree, a designer
needs to trust that synthesis will occur when
appropriate methods are used because this trust in
method and process will allow for a break from
self-critique and from a meta-evaluation of the
experience. Constant introspection related to failure
leads to a hyperawareness of technique. For an
inexperienced designer, this constant reassessment of
the technique can completely halt progress, resulting
in a lack of progress and a misuse of the most valuable
resource for synthesis, time.
4. Self-consciousness disappears. “In flow, we are too

involved in what we are doing to care about protecting
the ego.” Perhaps most important, this characteristic of
design synthesis affords the ability to try new
organizational schemas, to look at data in a new way,
or to combine disparate data in “what-if ” scenarios
that may or may not succeed. Because synthesis is
generative, even “wrong” synthesis approaches turn
out to be “right” because they have allowed the
designer to gain insight and knowledge about data and
information.
During the spark of synthesis, these four attributes create

an environment of meaning making. They create an atmo-
sphere that embraces the previously described elements of
abduction, constraints, and play. Flow is literally the awake-
dreaming state of mind that occurs when a designer is able to
move through the space of a problem, holding many design
“moves” in the mind at once, and suspending self-criticism
while retaining idea-based judgment.
As an example, consider a designer who is creating a strat-
egy presentation for an executive review. This presentation
will describe a vision for an entire product line, 18–24 months
in the future. The designer has a deadline, knows the audi-
ence, and must work with a tremendous amount of content.
These are the beginning constraints.

Consider three worst-case scenarios:
The designer is plagued with self-doubt. “What if I fail? What if
I do it wrong? What if I can’t figure out what to include in the
presentation?” This self-doubt acts as a damper on diver-
gence. The designer cannot suspend disbelief long enough to
create something and react to it. Without something concrete,
there is no interpretative meaning making or ideation.
Although a designer may make things while troubled by self-
doubt, the things themselves will likely be predictable,
expected, and—most unfortunately—incomplete. Fear of
failure will prohibit the act of completion, and no idea can
then be used for internal reflection.
The designer internalizes the entire problem. Although the
designer spends the entire day thinking hard about the prob-
lem, she makes no visual, tangible, and actual evidence of for-
ward progress, so she receives no feedback of action. Unable
to make concrete what is ethereal, the designer is constrained
by the limits of the brain: a small short-term memory store,
the inability to hold and examine multiple and competing
ideas in depth, and the quick decay of what could be strong
alternative new paths of ideation.
The designer is not good at the tools—or thinks he is not good
at them. In synthesis, the tools are artificial constructs. Yet the
methods of creating these artificial constructs are poorly
communicated from one designer to another, and a blank
canvas can be more daunting than the most complex com-
puter program. A designer who thinks he is not good at creat-
ing the necessary models and constructs will become unable
to merge action and awareness. A movement will be too con-
scious, or too forced, and the brain will focus more on the
action and less on the problem at hand.

Experienced designers have embraced shortcuts to allevi-
ate some of these problems. Some designers will force
themselves to write their every idea, regardless of the imme-
diate bearing on the problem at hand, on individual post-it
notes. After 30 minutes, they have overcome the empty-can-
vas problem and externalized whatever doubt they may have
about their own abilities to solve the problem. In a sense, they
force away whatever barriers to flow exist. This is a method of
synthesis known as Affinity Diagramming, and it is described
in more depth later in this book.
Other designers will schedule three or four hour-long work
sessions in a closed conference room with other creatives, then
ignore all “best practices” for successful meetings, such as agen-
das, action items, and goals. Instead, the designers will work on
a whiteboard to “talk out” the problem, without worrying
about wasting time or approaching the issue from the “wrong
way.” This serves as a method of externalization, albeit through
conversation rather than formal process.
Using Visualization as a Primary

Mechanism of Thought
Unlike our long-term memory, in which we can store infinite
amounts of material, the capacity of our short-term working
memory is limited. This limitation, or “bottleneck” as Philip
Johnson-Laird describes it ( Johnson-Laird, 2009), impedes
all forms of logical thought. Visualization is the way around
the bottleneck.
Put simply, visualization is the act of externalizing ideas.
Visualization can be formal and time consuming, as in the
case of a high-fidelity computer rendering, or it can be quick
and messy, as in the sketch on the back of a napkin. Both serve
to sidestep the limitations of working memory, offering tre-
mendous benefits for the process of synthesis. These benefits
are described next.
1. Visualization allows for comparison. Generally, the

unaided human brain can compare and contrast only
small quantities of things and attributes. A visual
representation of the comparison greatly aids

this process. Try it. Compare the following ideas, first
without visualization and then with the diagrams in
Figure 5.1:
Picture two fields of crops. The first field is divided

into 16 sections, each of equal size. Five different
crops are planted in the field: corn, peppers, lettuce,
tomatoes, and beets. Each section is limited to one
crop. There are twice as many peppers as beets, and
twice as much corn as peppers. But in the second
field, the crops are planted in equal amounts. Which
field has more peppers?
The visualization not only makes the solution visually

clear, but it also offers other new data (such as proximity) that
are not present in the original presentation of the problem.
2. Visualization can easily convey how changes occur

over time. A single visualization can be repeated, with
the majority of elements staying the same and a few
elements showing changes over time. Again, although
this can be conveyed through words, the mind has a
difficult time retaining the original state, thus making a
comparison extremely difficult.
3. Visualization can be used to describe spatial

relationships, helping to translate data into a perceptual
form for different, and sometimes easier, recall.
Field 1 Field 2
Corn Beets Peppers
Corn Beets Peppers Tomatoes Lettuce
Tomatoes Lettuce
Figure 5.1
Which field has more peppers?

4. Visualization makes concrete what was before only an
idea. This “realness” affects the way we consider an idea:
It makes it sharable, storable, and critiqueable. All of
these qualities contribute positively to design synthesis.
5. Perhaps most important, visualization allows our

brain to build connections between disparate ideas,
making meaning and creating new knowledge. This is
related to the perception acting as an “afterimage” for
working memory. Author Jonah Lehrer explains how
this works on a physiological level. He explains that
“. . . studies show that neurons in the prefrontal areas
will fire in response to a stimulus—such as the sight of
some cockpit instrumentation—and then keep on
firing for several seconds after the stimulus has
disappeared. This echo of activity allows the brain to
make creative associations as seemingly unrelated
sensations and ideas overlap” (Lehrer, 2009). The
prefrontal areas of the brain allow us to take learned
ideas and principles and apply them in new contexts.
Visualization helps us to essentially offload the data
from working memory, so other ideas can enter
working memory and be “mingled” and synthesized.
Visualization is not reserved for those who “can draw,”

because a visualization need not be either representative or
refined. A sketch on a napkin or a series of bubbles on a white-
board are the only types of visualizations necessary to achieve
the aforementioned benefits.
Changing a Prohibitive Culture

Given the importance of a supportive and encouraging cul-
ture, why don’t more people and companies embrace these
attributes during the development of new products? Simply,
the traditions of most businesses do not support these
qualities, and there has been no explicit effort to change these
traditions.
Consider the manner in which most large enterprise
product managers work. They spend most of their time in
meetings, and a great number of these meetings are held over

the phone or via a remote conferencing system. There is often
an agenda, and the meeting evolves in a fairly predictable
fashion. After a number of people join and announce them-
selves, the meeting owner describes the objective of the hour.
Various people add their comments and color to the discus-
sion, and notes are taken. Several people will arrive late,
disrupting the meeting and requiring backtracking. Often,
someone will be asked a question, and after an uncomfort-
able pause, the person will say, “I’m sorry, can you repeat the
question? I was multitasking.” Someone may try to share
something via WebEx or Live Meeting, and the technology
will likely fail. Eventually, the meeting will end—not because
the goals of the meeting have been met, but because the allot-
ted hour is over. The meeting notes will be distributed via
e-mail, and few will actually read them. The scripted manner
in which these types of meetings unfold would be comical,
except that these meetings are the norm and not the excep-
tion in corporate America.
Compare this scenario just described with the qualities of
play and flow. These qualities demand spontaneity; humor;
an amorphous, ill-defined sense of time; and a lack of inter-
ruptions. Being playful does not follow a timeline (“Be
playful—now!” does not work), and one cannot ensure that
flow will be accomplished during a 55-minute session. The
structure of corporate meetings negates the ability to enact
these qualities in a meaningful way.
Other qualities common in corporate product develop-
ment are the ideas of “socialization” and “consensus build-
ing”: that nothing can be considered done or can move
forward in a substantial way without input and signoff from a
larger group of stakeholders. Yet by its very definition, abduc-
tion demands that something is posited as correct and built
upon, that groundwork is defined to see what happens when a
particular direction is followed. Essentially, abductive think-
ing demands that a team try something, even if that some-
thing is a failure, to inform subsequent approaches.
Socialization puts the breaks on an idea before it gets too far
along, lest a stakeholder feel slighted that his opinion was not
considered. An idea might have been developed with Edward
de Bono’s green hat on, but it is socialized by those wearing

the logical and pessimistic black hat. The idea certainly will
not get very far through this process. Because socialization
and abduction are at odds, it is exceptionally difficult for large
enterprises to develop any traction toward “innovative ideas”
during the preliminary phases of product development.
Additionally, many large corporations have created a cul-
ture that rewards success and penalizes failure. Appropriately,
those who succeed have learned to minimize their potential
for failure and not to take great risks. This means doing things
that are more conservative and putting in place large systems
of planning, organization, and risk management. Often, these
corporations attempt to think through every detail of a new
product prior to making anything. A functional specification
document commonly describes every feature and function in
a product before it is built. Yet the functional specification
rejects the process of generative and abductive thinking and
ignores the role of making in the process of thinking. As Roger
Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the
University of Toronto describes, “As integrative thinkers put
their resolution through multiple prototypes and iterations,
they use generative reasoning—whose raw material, remem-
ber, is what does not yet exist—to work back down from res-
olution to architecture to causality to salience. Large
organizations may not recognize generative reasoning as a
legitimate mode of inquiry, but they depend on it for lasting
competitive advantage” (Martin, 2009).
Finally, consider the idea of a requirement definition doc-
ument being “baselined”—a common practice in large corpo-
rate organizations. This specification document explains, in
excruciating detail, what a product will be and how it will act.
The baselining process then forces any changes to this docu-
ment to jump through a rigorous set of hoops. Yet the entire
notion of constraints and purpose demands a sense of flexi-
bility, as further knowledge forces the reinvestigation of prior
guidelines. The structures put in place to support the manage-
ment of the giant document temper innovative design think-
ing, because they penalize late changes even when these
changes are for the betterment of the product and the users.

Section Three
Methods and
Applicability
The spark of synthesis occurs in the context of the DIKW

system—moving from data, to information, to knowledge,
and then to wisdom. The path has been routinely analyzed in
fields of Information Technology and Knowledge Manage-
ment, and it is mentioned by designer Nathan Shedroff in a
brief article titled “An Overview of Understanding” (Shedroff,
2000). As Shedroff describes, data alone have little value.
Although data usually implies numbers, it simply represents
discrete units of content, without context and with no organi-
zational mechanism. Creating information out of data may
seem a simple task: Determine the units of data that are rele-
vant and remove the rest. However, determining what is rele-
vant requires deep interpretation, subjective pruning, and a
framework in which to identify a hierarchy of importance.
Information can be thought of as meaningful data.
Information is the organization of data in ways that illustrate
meaning. In fact, this organization may alter the meaning
itself. This has an important implication, because the mean-
ing of seemingly objective data is altered by the appearance
and structure of that data.
Knowledge results from the combination of elements of
information to arrive at a principle, a theory, or a story.
Although information may be sensory, knowledge seems to
be more complicated and relies on personal experience and
tacit knowledge. Storytelling, with its long history as a mech-
anism of knowledge transfer, can be considered a rapid
immersion in experience.
Often thought of as enlightenment, wisdom can result
from applying knowledge in a new and novel manner.
This path from data to wisdom is not linear, and it is not
nearly as “clean” as just described. But this path will occur
implicitly during design synthesis as you attempt to organize,
manipulate, prune, and filter gathered data into a cohesive
structure for meaning making. This requires a number of tools
and techniques, many of which are subjective. The subjectiv-
ity of the design process indicates that the ability to replicate
findings—a critical aspect of a scientific method or process—
is not a relevant part of design. One quite capable designer
may synthesize gathered data with a certain result, whereas
another equally capable designer may synthesize the same
data with a wildly different result.
The synthesis phase of the design process requires the
designer’s ability to cross several increasingly difficult chasms
in the pursuit of understanding. This pursuit is both selfish
and altruistic at once. You will seek to achieve a sense of
knowledge acquisition to adequately begin the process of ide-
ation. Additionally, to encourage a sense of timelessness in
the development of designed artifacts, you will have to
encourage the same sense of knowledge acquisition for your
end user. If the user has learned, or felt passionately, or expe-
rienced a positive (or even negative) interaction with an arti-
fact, you will have created behavioral resonance. The three
chasms separating data, information, knowledge, and wisdom
are illustrated in Figure 6.1.
When you are considering your particular design problem,
and thinking about which methods to use, Table 6.1 will help
you find a method or approach that is appropriate.
Data Information Knowledge Wisdom

Chasm 3:
Chasm 2: Empathy and
Chasm 1: Experience Insight
Making Meaning Frameworking
out of Data
Figure 6.1
Chasms.

Table 6.1 A Method Selection Guide
Method Name Cross the Chasm Use This Method When:
Affinity diagramming Make meaning out of You have a lot of data, and you want to create
data some form of organization.
You are trying to identify initial themes or
patterns.
You need to abstract the complexity of your
research to something more consumable,
perhaps by an executive audience.
Flow diagramming Make meaning out of You are trying to understand or visualize a
data sequence of actions.
You are seeking to create an archetypical path
through an interface or system.
You are attempting to identify inefficiencies or
opportunities in a process.
Concept mapping Build an experience You need to think through and illustrate a
framework complicated idea in a simple way.
You want to illustrate relationships between
people, systems, or objects.
Forced semantic zoom Build an experience You are attempting to create an innovative
(ecosystem mapping) framework product, system, or service.
You want to understand and show the larger
context of a single product.
You want to describe brand relationships, rather
than product relationships.
Forced temporal zoom Build an experience You are attempting to create an innovative
(customer journey framework product, system, or service.
mapping) You want to understand and show the larger
timeline of a single product.
You want to describe brand relationships, rather
than product relationships.
You want to identify opportunities to extend a
brand into new territories.
Reframing Create empathy and You are attempting to create an innovative

insight product, system, or service.
You want to expand a product offering into new
and unexpected areas.
Insight combination Create empathy and You are attempting to create an innovative
insight product, system, or service.
You want to develop a breadth of new ideas.
61
Chapter 6
Methods for Making
Meaning out of Data
As you conclude the research phase of the design process, you

will have generated a large quantity of data. The data, although
potentially of great use, can be overwhelming and unclear.
Add complex content and often scarce time, and you are
forced into an immediate conundrum: You must make sense
of the data by immersing yourself in it, but the immersion
takes time—and the more time spent inspecting the data, the
less time can be spent actually designing.
The goal of this immersion process, then, is to quickly
make meaning and create information. Six immediate tech-
niques will begin to help you understand how to do this.
Externalizing the Process

(Get out of Your Laptop!)
The data created or gathered from contextual research will
often take many forms: photographs, video clips, transcripts,
requirements lists, magazine clippings, and other artifacts
related to the problem. In an effort to maintain some sense of
coherence, designers frequently horde the data in their lap-
tops; the digital format lets them easily organize it into files,
folders, and databases. But the file structure also arbitrarily
limits the ability to manipulate individual pieces of data freely
across file types, to form connections between pieces of data,
and to manipulate the data quickly. The physical limitation of
the laptop (the size), combined with the digital limitations of
the software (the organizational schema), dramatically limits
the designer’s ability to understand the research in totality.
Synthesis requires that you forge connections between
seemingly unrelated issues through a process of selective

pruning and visual organization. Because of the vastness of
data gathered while solving even a simple design problem, the
quantity of data to be analyzed is often too large to hold in
attentive memory at one time, so you must externalize the
data through a process of spatialization. Among the few tools
that designers continually use for this process are some incred-
ibly effective ones: a big wall, a marker, and a lot of post-it notes.
These tools will help you gain a strong mental model of the
design space. The externalization of the research data allows
for a progressive escape from the mess of gathered data.
Once the data have been externalized and the literal mess
is begun to be reduced, you can begin the more intellectual
task of identifying explicit and implicit relationships. Begin to
physically move content around, placing related items next to
each other. This process is less about finding “right” relation-
ships and more about finding “good” relationships. All of the
content is related in some way, but the important connections
are frequently multifaceted, complex, and rooted in culture.
Thus, it may be necessary to duplicate content (to allow it to
connect to multiple groups) or to abandon or rearrange
already established groupings several times during this pro-
cess. This relationship-building task can occur over hours,
days, or even weeks. Designers commonly explain that the
discussion that occurs during this process is fundamentally
more important than the output itself, because the conversa-
tion “fills in the gaps” in the research.
Once the groupings begin to emerge through the process
of organization, labels can make both the literal and the
implied contents of the group explicit.
Frequently, designers spend a great deal of time creating a
war-room-style wall of data. This synthesis wall delineates the
design space, allows for a collaborative process of sensemak-
ing, and provides a spatial understanding of structure. Once
the designers draw conclusions and progress through the ide-
ation phase, the wall becomes unnecessary, so it is ignored for
the rest of the project.
By taking the data out of the cognitive realm (the head)
and removing it from the digital realm (the computer), and
making it tangible in the physical realm (the wall) in one
cohesive visual structure, you are freed of the natural memory

limitations of the brain and the artificial organizational limita-
tions of technology. Content can now be freely moved and
manipulated, and the entire set of data can be seen at one
time. Implicit and hidden meanings are uncovered by relating
otherwise discrete chunks of data to one another and posi-
tioning these chunks in the context of human behavior.
Using Visual Design to Clean up the Mess

Once the content has been externalized, you are left with a
mess—quite literally. The sheer amount of data can take up
entire walls or offices, and the lack of consistency between
artifacts can look sloppy or disturbing. Some designers
describe a sense of anxiety from even looking at such a room.
Therefore, a second meaning-making technique is to use
principles of basic visual design and crasftsmanship—like hori-
zontal and vertical alignment, attention to detail, and patience—
to begin to build uniformity into walls of artifacts. Use a
consistent layout, square off corners, and legibly rewrite key
points. Because content is always in flux during synthesis, you
might need several “cleanup sweeps” throughout the process.
Once the content groupings have been established, some
designers find it useful to plot large lists of words and data
with a digital layout tool and to put these large posters literally
on top of the gathered data. Simply by glancing at that area of
the room, the designer can simultaneously see the data on the
poster and can easily trigger the memories and thoughts that
were present when the data was originally gathered.
Organizing to Produce Semantic Relationships

Once you have cleaned up the literal mess, you can begin the
more intellectual task of cleaning up the theoretical mess. Use
an organizational process to identify the content elements’
explicit and implicit relationships, including patterns made by
combining the elements. Identifying a relationship forces the
introduction of a credible and abductively logical, although
often unvalidated, story of why the elements are related.
As new elements (gleaned from past experiences in your
life) combine with existing elements, the activity of defining

and forging connections actively produces knowledge. This
process is best performed as a group, because the most impor-
tant part is the conversation related to the story.
Prioritizing the Data to Emphasize

What Is Important
As previously described, research produces a large amount of
data. During the process of synthesis, you must decide that one
piece of data is more important than another. This is accom-
plished by using an often implicit scale of importance by which
to compare the data. The scale of importance is subjectively, but
reasonably derived; its use is generally objective (within the
system, each element is consistently compared). Data prioriti-
zation eventually identifies multiple elements that can be seen
as complementary, thus creating a hierarchical data structure.
Judging the Data to Reduce the Quantity

But not all of the data identified in a discovery process is rele-
vant. The process of synthesis forces you to consider relevance,
because you pass the gathered data “through a large sieve” to
determine what is most significant in the current context.
Synthesis methods, then, require a constant reassessment of
the current state as compared to the unknown end state.
Enhancing the Data through “Best Guess”

Intuitive Leaps
Having organized these interpretations of the content, now
you must begin to visualize and question them. You must
begin to ask “why” and do your best to answer the question
credibly and abductively. Often, these visualized answers take
the form of charts, diagrams, graphs, or sketches. Because the
output is only a guess, initial visualizations are better pro-
duced at low fidelity, with a large marker on paper, rather than
investing a lot of time on pixel-perfect diagrams. The low
fidelity of these sketches also will help you discard them when
they prove to be the “wrong” solution, because you will not
have invested enough effort to become emotionally attached
to the idea.

For Example:
Getting to Meaning through Story
Contributed by Rachel Hinman, Nokia
We’ll never know how the world “really” is. We’ll always have
to construct what we think the world is . . . and humans do
this by telling stories.—Jerome Bruner
The goal of almost any designer worth her salt is to create
work that has value to others: to design products and inter-
faces that will contribute to the human experience in a posi-
tive and constructive way. But how? How does a modern
designer working in a diverse, globally connected world
ensure that her work that is functional, emotionally resonate,
and most important, meaningful?
Over the last decade, qualitative design research has been
lauded as the “secret step” in the design process that guaran-
tees this kind of success. Field research is supposed to yield
the kind of information that brings design teams to meaning.
But why?
Why does talking to people and listening to their stories of

their broken relationship with their television or the guilt they
feel about declining a friend request on Facebook make our
design work better?
And how do design teams translate those hours of

conversations into something actionable?
Different people have different answers to these questions.

My answer is found in the stories and in a simple process of
synthesis. I identify what we saw and heard, what it means, and
why it matters.
The Why: Understanding through Narratives. One of my

design heroes is not actually a designer; he is a cognitive and
educational psychologist. In the early 1990s, Jerome Bruner
published a seminal article entitled “The Narrative
Construction of Reality,” in which he argued that people
structure their sense of reality through narratives. In the arti-
cle, Bruner maintains that people make sense of the world by
identifying similarities and differences. He argues that the

human mind structures its sense of reality by reconciling the
similarities and differences in cultural products such as lan-
guage and symbolic systems. Of particular interest is that
people describe these similarities and differences through
narratives.
To get a better sense of this theory in action, try asking
friends or colleagues about their experience using the remote
control of their television set. Here is my mom’s response:
I actually have two remote controls—one for the TV and

one for the satellite dish. Using them is like opening a
padlock. There’s a special sequence you have to push the
buttons in and if you don’t do it in the right order, it doesn’t
work. Then if you’re not close enough to the TV, it doesn’t
work either. So I usually have to dance around the TV like a
goof ball for a couple minutes with two remote controls just
to watch Law and Order. I don’t know why there has to be so
many buttons and why they have to make it so
complicated—I am turning on a television, not landing a
plane.
Note how my mom describes the experience by compar-

ing it to several other activities that people can relate to (open-
ing a padlock, dancing around, landing a plane). In this simple
quote, there are a lot of inferences on how to improve the
design of remote controls.
Bruner maintains that humans learn to do this activity of
comparison at a very young age. In his book Making Meaning,
Bruner references a simple and elegant experiment in which
kindergarten children were asked to look at two photos. Both
photos depict a young girl at her own birthday party. In one
photo, the birthday girl is smiling and happy. In the other
photo, the birthday girl is crying and is clearly displeased. The
children were then asked to select a photo and explain what is
happening in the photo. Interestingly, each child in the study
chose the photo of the girl crying. One child explains the
tears were caused by poor party attendance; nobody showed
up. Another child postulates the tears were caused by the girl
arguing with her mother over which party dress to wear.
Another child claimed the tears were caused by not receiving
the birthday present she had hoped for.

Bruner’s experiment underscored the fundamental differ-
ence between definition and meaning. The definition of a
birthday party is an event to celebrate one’s birth. But what a
party means—the cultural expectations, the social script, the
attributes that define the experience—is described through
story. People use narratives to describe expectations. The
children all selected the photo of the girl crying because it
defied what they would expect to see at a birthday party. Their
stories of poor party attendance, mothers enforcing bad cloth-
ing choices, and crappy presents mirrored the process by
which our minds reconcile similarities and differences in
expectation. The children were using narrative and compari-
son to describe their expectations of a birthday experience.
The How: Applicability to Designers. Design is about creat-

ing a product, services, or experiences that map to user expec-
tations. Designers often rely on instincts to intuit these
expectations. However, as the dimensions of user groups—
dimensions such as culture, gender, and age—become more
granular and distinctive, it becomes more important for
designers to draw from real data to match the expectations of
the people they design for. There is no better way to under-
stand these expectations than to get out in the field and listen
to the stories and perceptions of real people.
Although qualitative research has multiple benefits, it is
time and labor intensive. Most notably, the analysis and syn-
thesis of qualitative data can be an arduous task. The comple-
tion of field interviews leaves most design teams with a
colossal mountain of videotapes, transcripts, and digital
photos. The task of translating it into thought-provoking and
actionable insights can cause even the most committed user-
centered designer to run for the hills. I have done my share of
floating in an abyss of qualitative data with seemingly no shore
in sight. To save my own sanity, I developed the following
framework to guide myself through analysis and synthesis.
What We Saw and Heard: Memoing. Part of what makes

data analysis and synthesis tough to tackle is the fact that
there is a lot of data, and it is in disparate forms. Slogging
through it all can feel intimidating because there is simply so

much stuff. This phase—the analysis and synthesis phase of
the design process—has always seemed eerily like Clean
Sweep, a television show about homeowners who have let
their pack-rat tendencies go awry. Their homes are so full of
clutter they are uninhabitable. Homeowners on the show
must first unload the entire contents of their home into their
front lawn. This is effective for two reasons. First, it forces
people to face the madness and take a good hard look at all of
their belongings. Then, it presents the clutter in an apples-to-
apples format, where items can be compared and contrasted.
Similarly, it is important to examine field research’s often-
disparate data forms (video tapes, transcripts, digital photos,
etc.) in an apples-to-apples format by transforming it into
something tangible, visible, and consistent. Only then can you
take a good hard look at everything that has been collected
and start making hard choices about what is important.
Making Your Data Visible. Making sense of data starts

during the debriefing of every interview. Different people
have different perspectives on “note taking” during an inter-
view. I do not take written notes during the interview because
I find it distracting for the participant and for me. Instead, I
videotape and audiotape the interview, and I schedule a half
hour after an interview to debrief and capture initial impres-
sions with the interview team. We usually go to a coffee shop
and talk about what stood out for us from the interview. Soon
we have a stack of post-it notes filled with quotes and key-
words. Each post-it has a thought written on it, something
like “called customer service every day for a week” or “pissed
off when blood sugar is high or low—what am I doing
wrong?”
At some point after all of the interviewing, I also review
the audio or videotapes and see whether I missed anything.
Whenever a participant says something I think is interesting
or important, I write it on a post-it note and record the time-
stamp from the video, which makes editing much easier. This
process of recording things on post-its is a hybrid of Grounded
Theory, a data-analysis process used by some anthropologists.
The act of taking down important points from participants’
conversation is known as “memoing” (see Fig. 6.2).

The “Why” of Post-It Notes. Some researchers like to work
Figure 6.2
digitally, entering all their memo information in tools like An example of memoing.
Excel or Word. I find this challenging. The goal for ethno-
graphic field data analysis is to build a shared understanding
with a team. That requires collaboration. Computers make it
difficult to share data and facilitate conversations around it.
Unlike data trapped in an Excel spreadsheet, the tactile qual-
ity of post-it notes is easy for people to scan and engage.
Memoing on post-it notes also provides a shared sense of
ownership in the process, making it easy to build upon the
ideas of others. Of course, post-it notes also have downsides:
You cannot e-mail them or easily share them with teams
working remotely. But I think the benefits of easy collabora-
tion far outweigh the trade-offs.
Participant Boards. It is very easy to generate more notes

than you know what to do with. I use the participants them-
selves as organizing principles. I dedicate a large sheet of card-
board, a wall, or window to each participant in the study. The
team fills each space with the post-it notes and photos from
the interviews. Each space functions as an initial organizing
principle for the data, a small homage to each participant that

highlights the important quotes and stories they have shared
(see Fig. 6.3).
What It Means: Getting to Insights. Once all the data have

been memoed and organized, the next step is to cull through
the stories and data to find insights. I start by looking at the
participant boards to identify commonalities in the memos
that simply stand out as interesting or important. Collaborating
with my team and my clients, I begin to group the memos
into affinity clusters. The quotes and stories themselves
become fodder for conversations, diagrams, and frameworks.
Collaboration is critical during this phase of the process.
Sitting in a room by yourself with all those notes will drive
you mad and make your results one-dimensional. Encourage
your teammates to marinate in the data with you. Compare
stories and scan for patterns. Discuss different points of view.
Encourage debate. Most important, capture everything. Do
not let your team conversations disappear into the ether.
Figure 6.3
An example
of a participant’s space.

This “what it means” phase is about identifying the impor-
tant insights in the stories you have heard. Just like the clutter
bugs in Clean Sweep, you cannot keep all the data—there is
too much of it. Through conversation and collaboration, you
will find the gem-like insights that are most salient for your
project.
Why It Matters: Emerging Insights and Implications. The

final step of the process is editing your insights into some-
thing that has relevance and expresses a point of view. The
goal is to come up with emerging insights that support a
design implication. Together, the emerging insights and
design implications recommend the actions you think should
be taken next.
Editing insights is challenging. Typically, teams have more
than they know what to do with, and insights are not equally
relevant to the project. So you must continually ask yourself
and your team, “Why does this matter?” Another helpful
technique is to share the ideas, themes, and affinity clusters
with people who know nothing about the project. Sharing
your thinking can help determine which ideas resonate. Fresh
eyes also help in honing the “talking points” and crafting the
story or its emerging insights.
Emerging Insights. Creating a strong and persuasive emerg-

ing insight is a subtle dance between exposing data found in
the field (the “what we saw/heard” information) and your
interpretation of that data (the “what it means” information).
It requires ruthless editing to move from the whole to the five
to seven most important data findings, which become emerg-
ing insights. Use the stories from the participants to support
these insights.
Implications. Each emerging insight should have an impli-

cation—a clear directive to the client. Implications tell people
why the research matters and how it is relevant to them.
Effective implications reframe the problem in an interesting
and thought-provoking way. They are sticky and memorable.
And just like good design, good research implications also
express a point of view, an essential part of ensuring actionable

research. You have gone into the field and talked to real people
who have shared a part of their lives with you. You have a
responsibility to share their perspective, even if it is unpopu-
lar. Your research implications should tell their story and give
your clients or colleagues clear and actionable next steps.
What research implications should not do is tell clients
what they already know (such as “people have powerful rela-
tionships with their mobile phones”).
Putting It Together. The process I have described has three

general steps:
1. What we saw and heard. Put your data in apples-to-

apples format through memoing. Create participant
boards—an homage to each user—as a first step in
organizing the data.
2. What it means. Marinate in the data and collaborate

with your colleagues. Encourage discussion and
debate. Identify patterns. Capture the initial insights.
Write everything down!
3. Why it matters. Organize the memo clusters and initial

insights into emerging insights. Edit by frequently
asking, Why does this theme matter? Find your point of
view and create implications, the clear steps the client
should take as a result of your findings.
The sheer volume of data produced during qualitative field

studies can leave you wondering whether it is worth it. It is.
Products, services, and experiences designed using this type
of process have an inherent sensitivity to user needs and
expectations. Listening to the stories of users will help you
get beyond obvious solutions. It is the work that will get you
to the meaning.

About the Author. Rachel Hinman is a designer/researcher/
strategist and a recognized thought leader in the mobile
user-experience field. With more than a decade of design
industry experience, she is a strong believer in approaching
mobile design and strategy from an empathic, human-
centered perspective.
Rachel’s passion for people, design, and the belief that
people can use technology to improve their lives has been the
driving force of her career. Her passions and interests lie in
the convergence space: creating experiences beyond the
desktop. Rachel’s innate sensitivity to people and culture have
proven to be powerful skills, enabling her to lead successful
research studies on mobile phone usage in the United States,
Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Rachel writes and speaks frequently on the topic of mobile
research and design. She is the creative force behind the 90
Mobiles in 90 Days Project, and her perspectives on mobile
user experience have been featured in Interactions Magazine,
BusinessWeek, Wired, Wireless Informatics Magazine, and the
Adaptive Path blog.
Rachel received a master’s degree in design planning from
the Institute of Design in Chicago. Her clients and previous
employers have included IDEO, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Mobile,
and Kaiser Permanente.

Method: Affinity Diagramming
An affinity is a sense of closeness or likeness. When ideas are
said to have an affinity to one another, it means that they share
enough essence to be deemed related. An affinity relationship
is subjective and requires interpretation. When considered
through a broad lens, everything has a connection to every-
thing else, so you must use a smaller filter when you try to
identify the affinity of ideas.
An affinity diagram is a method of discovering relation-
ships among ideas, and then emphasizing and highlighting
their likenesses. The diagramming process itself is generative,
in that it creates further knowledge about the ideas. The
method’s output then helps to visualize the larger forged idea
patterns and connections. Finding likeness helps to organize
and to manage a seemingly overwhelming task. From thou-
sands of discrete data points, a theme or set of themes can be
found that point to a more manageable set of patterns. An
affinity diagram is a tool for the eye as much as the mind.
Although the act of organization is a cognitively demanding
task, the results are perceptual because the clusters indicate
relative scale and provide visual structure.
An affinity diagram assumes that your raw data have
already been gathered and, to some degree, formalized.
However, it can be used with other generative design meth-
ods, such as brainstorming, to simultaneously develop syn-
thesize ideas. But this method need not be limited to
ideas—it can be used to organize and find patterns in any sort
of data. Commonly, statements from user interviews are used
as individual data points. Each line from a transcribed inter-
view acts as a unique data point. In this way, 10 or 15 indi-
vidual interviews can be mingled to find themes, and the
resulting diagram helps the design team to rank themes based
on prominence and size.
How to Apply This Method
1. Write each piece of data on a note card or post-it note.

A “piece of data” can be a word, a phrase, a sentence, a
picture, a movie, or any other discrete element. The
small size of the card or note adds portability and

impermanence, which is critical for the fluid
manipulation of ideas. Code each piece of data
uniquely with a reference to the source material so you
can trace each note to its source. For example, if the
diagram is going to map interview statements, the
interview may be labeled by number (i.e., “interview 2”)
and the line number labeled by number (“22”), so the
unique note card would be labeled “interview 2.22.”
2. Once the cards have been individually generated,

spread them out randomly on a surface. Random
placement ensures that the order of initial generation
is not creating an implicit pattern.
3. Now, begin to physically move the cards around,

looking for patterns and groupings. Each movement
can be logical or emotional, but the intention should
be made concrete through a verbal statement like “I’m
moving this card next to this one because both
describe a way of paying for items” or “I feel like both
of these cards are discussing purchasing, so I’m going
to put them together.” Slowly and collaboratively, work
through the cards, finding patterns and building
connections. It may be tempting to attach a label to a
group of cards, but wait as long as possible. Once a
group gets a label, it becomes “concrete,” so
participants will be reluctant to disrupt the grouping
in favor of a better combination.
4. As you work through the entire set of cards, patterns

and groups can become large. Consider breaking a
pattern of eight or more notes into separate, smaller,
and more defined groups.
5. Once all of the notes have been placed in groups,

conduct a focusing exercise. Label each group on a
larger, alternate-colored card. This label, which should
capture the group’s essence, might be “Purchasing,”
“Exploring Checkout,” or “Ways of Shopping.”
6. Next, develop and articulate a two- or three-sentence

description of the category. This description should

capture the theme of the grouping, allowing a reader
to understand the thematic contents of the group
without actually reading each note. As an example, the
description for “Ways of Shopping” might be “This
grouping describes a number of ways in which a
consumer would shop for items. It includes some new
ways of thinking about purchasing and checkout.”
7. Finally, put the entire effort into a document in an

outline format, including the name, the description,
and the individual content elements. The combination
of the visual groupings and the more organizational
outline become the deliverables used to communicate
what you have done and what you have learned.
While developing the affinity diagram, the designer has

begun to move from data to information by adding contex-
tual containers for discrete ideas. The context ties to both the
actual contents of the notes and the larger worldview of the
designer.
Variations on this method include grouping entirely in
silence to avoid cross-designer idea “contamination,” and
doing the grouping alone before combining result sets.

For Example:
Parallel Clustering
Contributed by Colleen Murray, Jump Associates
What follows is an approach for synthesizing numerous insights

into clear, prioritized directions.
Overview. Imagine you are working on a team-based

research project. You have already amassed a large set of data
and analyzed it. You now have a number of interesting insights
and possible directions. Unfortunately, everyone on the team
has a different idea of what is most important. And your team
needs to converge on some winning concepts sooner rather
than later. How do you synthesize multiple perspectives into
a set of clear, prioritized directions? More important, how do
you prescribe, rather than simply describe where to go next?
For some, parallel clustering is the answer.
A Parallel Clustering Case Study. In 2005, a large, interna-

tional client asked us to help them explore their emerging
markets strategy. The project was focused on the BRICS—
the developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and
South Africa. The goal of our work was to understand broad
cultural themes in order to identify business opportunities in
these countries. Our team was made up of four hybrid think-
ers who closely collaborated with our client to better under-
stand the day-to-day needs of small and midsized businesses,
and the cultural drivers that differ from those in the United
States. The project data came primarily from secondary
research and expert interviews.
Selecting Methodologies: Using Parallel Clustering to

Quickly Prioritize Themes. We needed to find a set of action-
able themes based on our research, yet after weeks of analysis,
we had too many insights, too many interesting directions,
and a lack of clear focus on what was most important.
Clustering activities, such as affinity diagramming, got us
only so far. It was time to turn insights into action. We decided
to organize a parallel clustering activity to help us extract and
prioritize our top five themes.

Although our clients did not participate in the activity, we
were able to share our process during discussions with them
after the fact. Having documentation in place to show them
how we got from point A to point B was helpful in providing
transparency and getting buy-in on the final themes.
Understanding the Process

1. Take time to reflect. (Activity type: individual; time:
15 minutes)
On the BRICS project, our first step was to give each
team member a short time to reflect on the insights
each found most important. The short time forced us
to “think with our gut.” Because the team had been
living and breathing this content for 7 weeks, this
exercise forced us to synthesize quickly what had been
forming in the backs of our brains throughout the
entire project. We each produced a list of our own
most important insights.
2. Get out all the possibilities (Activity type: group;

time: 60 minutes)
Once we finished our lists, we came back together to
develop a visual representation of all the possible
theme areas—a mindmap. First, we assigned one of us
to facilitate and record the conversation. Then each of
us shared our lists while the recorder created the
mindmap by capturing our words on a large sheet of
paper. At this stage, these tips helped us consider a
breadth of possibilities:
• Avoid introducing recorder bias. In our examples, the

recorder captured similar topics near one another
without imparting personal bias into the map by
making linkages explicit. The recorder stayed
objective, asking questions and getting
confirmation from participants that their ideas had
been accurately represented.
• Capture variations and explore all possibilities. If

someone thought that her idea was like something
else that was already on the paper, then the insight

was recorded in close proximity. These slight
variations were important to capture, not just for
content variation but also because capturing them
helped everyone on the team to feel heard.
• Illustrate frequency of idea generation as a mechanism

for describing popularity. When, as in many cases,
more than one of us had the same insight on our
lists, we only needed to capture it once. However,
we tried to indicate that the idea had been
mentioned multiple times by adding a running tally
in the corner of the idea.
We concluded the group session by making a photocopy of

our map for each team member to work with (see Fig. 6.4).
3. Make your own clusters.
(Activity type: individual; time: 15 minutes)

Next, the group agreed to find approximately five clusters
of related insights, and we developed a color code to identify
each person’s work to come. Then, we split up and individu-
Figure 6.4
ally began the process of clustering and prioritizing. Using This is the initial mindmap
created by the team after
compiling everyone’s top
themes.

our signature color of marker, we each circled connections
between insights that, as individuals, we saw as relating most
closely, and we highlighted our top themes (see Figs. 6.5 and
6.6). The different colors later helped us to track who said
what. Although the clustering step sounds simple, it occurs
when folks are often most challenged. The step forces us to
justify how we defined a particular space.
4. Compare outputs.
(Activity type: group; time: 30 minutes)

We came back together to compare our results. Taping all
the mindmaps side by side on the wall, we compared what we
saw. Clusters that were repeated across multiple maps were
easy to prioritize as final themes. Most clusters had similari-
ties with those of different teammates, but they were not
exactly the same. We heard many comments such as “oh, I
never thought of it that way.” These differences revealed inter-
esting nuances and valuable points of view. As we discussed
further, we took notes to capture the insights, meanings, and
decisions we made along the way.
Figure 6.5 5. Define meaningful, final themes.
We made a copy of the original
mindmap for each team
member.

(Activity type: group; time: 30 minutes) Figure 6.6.
These clusters demonstrate
Next, we made final selections of themes. It was fairly pain- another person’s alternative
less because we had already spent the afternoon thinking take on the most important
about these themes, both individually and as a group. We had clusters. Note the differences
from Figure 6.5.
a good idea where everyone in the room stood. We knew what
was important and what was not, and we knew different ways
to cut the data. We combined all of our thoughts into a final
mindmap that highlighted our final themes (see Fig. 6.7).
The Benefits of Parallel Clustering

Manage Complexity. Information overload can be a challenge
for any synthesis activity. Parallel clustering forces each team
member to quickly articulate the top ideas, themes, and needs
they view as most important. This activity helps to cut through
the clutter and very quickly identify what is most important.
Foster Collaboration. Most teams are made up of individu-

als with various personalities and working styles. Some folks
are quiet. Others can dominate a group. And some people
simply need more time than others to process what they
think. Making everyone’s thought processes explicit within a
group can be a challenge. Parallel clustering gives everyone
the time and space they need to share what they think is most

Figure 6.7
This is the team’s final output important and why. This helps teams to tap into unique indi-
of top themes. After a
vidual perspectives and truly harness the team’s wide array of
discussion, we agreed that this
combination of eight clusters experiences and skills.
would best help us tell our
story.
See New Possibilities. Even when teams take the time to
listen to one another, it does not mean that everyone hears
the same thing. It can be difficult to understand others’
nuances. But because these various flavors can add richness
and depth to insights, systems must be used to capture the
details. Creating a shared recording or mindmap helps to
reveal both the similarities and differences in people’s framing
of topics. Physically clustering similar or overlapping ideas
near each another quickly reveals what people agree on and
what they do not.
Make Trade-Off Decisions. At its essence, synthesis is

about combining two or more entities to form something
new. There are many ways to gain clarity on decisions about
which direction to pursue. A visual representation of the dif-
ferent ways that folks prioritize identical data points helps to
foster a rich discussion on the must-haves, the nice-to-haves,
and the different paths to those decisions.

Move Quickly. Get the team together in a room. Force
people to “think with their gut.” Prioritize what is most impor-
tant. Get all the ideas out. Share as a group. Put these together,
and you will move from chaos to clarity with great speed.
With a little planning, the entire parallel clustering activity
takes only 2-1/2 hours.
In Summary. The synthesis process for teams looks and

feels like a unique mix of familiar activities; clustering, mind-
mapping, and idea ranking. Yet parallel clustering is different.
Unlike a simple clustering exercise, parallel clustering quickly
reveals multiple alternatives for grouping information. It is
different from a final ranking or selection activity, because it
builds robust themes, rather than simply filtering ideas out.
And the technique is distinct from personal mindmapping,
because shared maps make everyone’s thinking transparent to
the entire group.
About the Author. Colleen Murray brings an interaction

designer’s sensibility to the creation of compelling future
strategies. Her design experience has helped her to better
parse the relationship between people and the objects that
surround them. A significant portion of Colleen’s work has
focused on helping clients to map out potential new business
opportunities. She has helped Jump to develop proprietary
methods for analysis and identification of promising growth
areas. Her work has explored a number of industries, includ-
ing consumer electronics, digital entertainment, and office
environments. Colleen holds a master’s degree in design plan-
ning from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a bachelor
of fine arts degree in graphic design from the University of
Illinois.

Method: Flow Diagramming
Ethnographers Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt developed
a set of visual work models in their text Contextual Design: A
Customer-Centered Approach to Systems Design (Holtzblatt &
Beyer, 1997). The common visual style of the models creates
a language for seeing and understanding work as it occurs,
and the models can then be referenced throughout design.
Although the intention of these work models was to help
usability engineers create usable software, the visual style of
making connections is ideal for designers focused on inter-
preting complicated data. More important, the act of model-
ing is a method of design synthesis. By producing work
models, designers generate new knowledge, identify gaps in
their shared understanding of a problem space, find new ways
of looking at a problem, and help identify pragmatic and
easily solvable design problems.
Beyer and Holtzblatt developed five models to capture the
nuances of ethnographic data: the Flow, Cultural, Sequence,
Physical, and Artifact models. The designed object can be
introduced into the models and the effects this object would
have on the entire work system can be predicted.
The Cultural model attempts to illustrate only interper-
sonal relationships and to articulate the effects of political or
social factors. In this way, the model describes the human,
emotional, and often subjective business environment that
shapes the way design decisions are made. As an example, in
many large companies, a single decision maker might feel a
need to gain consensus among peers before making a design
decision. This is a cultural feeling within the particular work-
place, and it would be captured in the diagram (see Fig. 6.8).
The Sequence model shows the order of triggers, inten-
tions, and actions that occur during work, allowing for an
understanding of implicit task structure and hierarchy. This
model breaks down work into a concrete and specific list of
activities, describing the causes and results of each activity in
a process (see Fig. 6.9).
The Physical and Artifact models (see Figs. 6.10 and 6.11)
capture the built environment and the objects used to com-
plete tasks, showing both a visualization of these items and
the details of their use and misuse.

Administration
Oversees
Incentive Disconnect
Demands
Expects
Customer
Security Privacy
Profit
Leverages
Money Utility
Provides
Investors
Provides
Teller
Urged to sell more services
Figure 6.8
The Flow model (see Fig. 6.12) captures the movement of Cultural diagram.
information without regard for time; it allows for a visual syn-
thesis of data and information transfer. This model connects
entities and actions, but because time is abstracted, the model
acts as a conglomerate of activity, communication, and knowl-
edge share. It is as though someone recorded each person
individually in an organization to see what everyone was
doing, then laid each frame from each recording on top of one
another on a single diagram. The diagram shows handoffs of
artifacts, describes where responsibilities begin and end, and
illustrates the mechanisms and vehicles that are used to
accomplish work.
Although all of the models are useful, the flow model is
particularly relevant in capturing information related to syn-
thesis and moving from data to information. The flow model
captures the chaos inherent in large, intertwined systems.
Although the data are interesting alone, the model provides a
valuable context for this data by showing each piece as feeding
into, or being fed by, a larger flow and transport of content.

Action Intent Trigger
Customers
Customer puts money in account To save money, in a Payday

secure manner
Account
Account contents are invested To generate profit Quarterly reporting
Invested
Investment managers utilize To maximize yield while Market volatility

different strategies minimizing risk
Loans Bonds
Stocks Derivatives
The strategies generate revenue To pay for operations (Ongoing)
for the bank To pay investors
To pay interest
Revenue
Figure 6.9
Sequence diagram.
Private
meeting
Security
area
Waiting area
Check-in area
(forms, sign-in
sheet, promotional
material)
Teller line
Manager Tellers
Security
Figure 6.10
Physical diagram.
88
Name
Address Checks
City, State, Zipcode
DATE:
Sign here for

cash received Total from
other side
Bank Name Subtotal
address
Less cash
City, State, Zipcode
received
$
.
Routing Number 012345678 Account Number 012345678
Figure 6.11
The process diagram is a type of Flow model that illus- Artifact diagram.
trates the logical path through a system, showing decision
points and articulating cause-and-effect relationships and
system use. This diagram (also known as data flow diagrams
or decision tree diagrams) has traditionally been used by elec-
trical engineers and computer scientists to illustrate the logi-
cal flow of data through a system. These diagrams can be
created relatively quickly, prior to implementing complicated
systems, and then manipulated to determine the optimum
flow of data. The method can be used as both a generative
exercise and an explanatory tool. Generally, this diagram is
“emotion agnostic”—it focuses on actions and reactions of
both people and the system itself. Building a Process diagram
(see Fig. 6.13) is a form of synthesis that forces the designer
to rationalize knowledge related to temporal flow and to con-
stantly change his frame and consider the totality of behavior.
(He is forced to consider not only an idea’s core but also its
periphery). A designer must consider the edge cases, describ-
ing what happens when less desirable behavior occurs with a
product, service, or system.
A process diagram helps a designer move from data to
information by contextualizing a discrete step in the context
of the entire process, grounding a particular action or move-
ment in relationship to other actions or movements. This
forces the designer to evaluate human and system decision
points and to consider what will happen when a person does
something or behaves in a certain way. Additionally, once the

Drawer Booth Office
sits in a sits in a
is placed in
Security monitors Money manages Manager

Teller
Camera [physical & digital]
monitors interacts with handles

saves
may
monitors require Advanced
Guard Customer
Transaction
Loan
Mortgage
New Account
Figure 6.12
Flow diagram.
diagram has been created, it can be used for a number of later-
phase activities. For example, in software design, the same
diagram can form the beginning of a unified modeling lan-
guage (UML) diagram suitable for authoring test cases, or it
can be used to identify screen-based design criteria for the
wireframing and visual design phases of software creation.

Before creating a process diagram, a designer must have iden-
tified, through ethnography, the system’s entities and their
roles. An entity is typically a person, but it can be a group, a
company, or another system or process. As an example, if I go
into a bank and hand my money to a bank teller, we are three
entities: me, the teller, and the bank.

Enter Bank
Does the customer No The customer Is it the customer’s Yes The customer
have an account? requires a manager. turn for a manager? meets the manager.
Yes No
Does the customer Yes The customer enters

Wait.
require an advanced the manager’s office
transaction?
The customer Is it the customer’s Wait.

enters the line. turn in line? No
Yes
...
The customer
Does the customer Yes ...
approaches
the teller. need to deposit
money?
No
... Exit Bank

Incomplete process
shown for illustrative
purposes
Figure 6.13
Here are the steps to creating a process diagram: Process diagram.
1. List and prioritize the entities. Prioritizing, being

subjective, can be approached from a variety of
perspectives. For example, if the perspective is
usability, the focus will be on end-user entities. If the

perspective is financial optimization, entities that
generate or manage revenue may be deemed most
important.
2. List the major processes, in the sequence in which

they occur. A banking flow includes processes such as
“enter the bank,” “fill out the deposit slip,” “stand in
line,” and “find out my account is overdrawn.” Despite
seemingly infinite processes that can occur in a bank,
the designer can limit them by focusing on the ones
most relevant to the prioritized entities listed earlier.
3. An ancillary benefit of the list is that it may—and

likely will—identify gaps in knowledge that need
further research. In the earlier banking example, while
the designer begins to list what tellers do when they
receive money from customers, she may quickly realize
that she has no idea what happens to the money once
it is placed in the till. So she must find out.
4. Additionally, note that the designer can select any

level of detail upon which to create a process flow.
Each process, such as “stand in line,” has subprocesses
that can also be mapped (like “approach the line,”
“take the last spot in line,” “move forward,” etc.).
5. Identify the start and end points for the first major
process, tie them to the primary entity, and place them
on a large sheet of paper (“customer enters the bank”
and “customer exits the bank”).
6. Map out the logic flow to connect the starting point

and the ending point. Then ask logical questions to
understand what a user will do next, and draw
branching decision paths to show what happens at
each decision point. In our banking example, a
customer (entity) enters the bank (process). This has
been defined as the starting state. Does he approach
the line? (question). If yes, he stands in it. If no, he
stands somewhere else in the lobby (branching path).
7. Continue mapping entity, process, question, and

branching path throughout the entire described

experience until you reach the desired end state. This
process typically requires many iterations, because it is
difficult to anticipate the number of choices available
to a person as he moves through even a simple system.
Because of this difficulty, it is useful to work on large
sheets of paper until you identify a core structure.
Only then does it make sense to move to a computer
for help in organizing and altering the presentation
qualities of the diagram (such as making sure logical
lines do not intersect).
8. Observe the process flow to find areas of complexity

and needs for more research and to simplify processes
that need it.
Although the diagram can be useful throughout the proj-

ect, the act of creating it is most useful to the designer because
it develops a strong mental representation of the boundaries
of a complicated system. Essentially, she has built a mental
model akin to actually performing the diagrammed functions.
So although she may not have the tacit knowledge built from
years of, say, working in a bank, the designer can now visual-
ize changes to the system and more quickly and accurately
predict how changes would affect different entities.
This type of diagram can be used to illustrate either the
existing “problem” state or the potentially new “fixed” state.
Both help to understand a design problem’s structure and to
reframe a static problem into a temporal one. In fact, creating
a diagram for both the “before” and “after” states can be a
powerful method of communicating design’s positive impact
from a systems perspective.

For Example:
The Flow through a Hunter Fan Thermostat
Contributed by Lauren Serota, frog design
Overview. Interaction with any object or service happens

over time. Through new media (motion graphics, film, audio),
we have learned how to manipulate time and what those
manipulations mean. Although we cannot yet alter the
cadence or speed of time as it pertains to real life, designers
can alter and manipulate the order of actions within designed
systems. Through this manipulation, we can create organiza-
tion for experiences that feel more efficient, more playful, or
more natural by matching the user’s understanding and
expectations. Task flow diagramming is a way of visualizing
this manipulation of time.
Task flows are tools used in analyzing, designing, docu-
menting, or managing a process or program in various fields.
As designers, we typically use them to map out decisions and
actions that users can take when using a physical product, a
software application, or a service. Task flows can be very
useful in breaking down anything that happens over time.
They can be particularly useful for moving from user insights
or a design brief into the initial stages of design. For example,
if you are trying to understand opportunities for new tools
and processes within a certain task or domain, an easy way to
frame the context for that tool or process is to understand the
sequence of events and the possible decision points around
that task.
Consider a clothes dryer as an example. A typical, high-
level task flow of using a clothes dryer goes like this:
open door > load clothes > close door > pick setting > press “start”
It provides a good example because each step and the

physical embodiment of the object that facilitates each step
can be clearly imagined. Imagine if, for some reason, you
moved “pick setting” so the flow went like this:
pick setting > open door > load clothes > close door > press “start”
This is a possible flow with most clothes dryers. However,

by framing the task this way, you can see the opportunity for

design exploration aimed to support this flow if it were found
to be more mechanically sound, useful, or enjoyable. A pos-
sible outcome of the revised flow could be the elimination of
a “start” button, with the dryer instead starting when the user
closes the door. Additionally, the alternative flow provides a
means for comparison; with multiple styles of interaction to
compare, a design team can debate the tradeoffs of each.
Tasks flows have both practical and conceptual applica-
tions. For example, they can be used practically as an outline
for any kind of interaction (human to human, human to prod-
uct, product to product) or as a guide to understanding deci-
sions and actions that take place over time. That is how
interaction and industrial designers typically use them. Task
flows can also be used in understanding an ecosystem. When
designing one part of a larger system, understanding how that
part works and defining its role within the larger system is
important and often inspirational for designers. Task flows are
a good way of visually understanding this type of information.
Task flows can vary from the strikingly simple, such as the
clothes dryer example mentioned earlier, to the overwhelm-
ingly complex. This flexibility lends itself to the layering of
useful information based on the intended goal of the task
flow. For example, designer Austin Govella proposes includ-
ing active versus passive indicators in a task flow to further
enrich the usefulness of the diagram and using artifacts versus
actions to communicate response (such as “see stop sign”
[passive] and “stop car” [active] as two discrete pieces of the
diagram). One could also imagine using a similar differentia-
tion when designing a convergent physical/digital device,
such as a cell phone or medical scanner, as indicators for
physical versus software interactions. Govella also proposes
indicating insights generated based on the task flow, as well as
data output from particular steps to provide context for activ-
ities and design decisions.
As the experiences we have with products become richer
and more complex, designers increasingly use task flows in
the product development process to produce clear, functional
visualizations for communicating with both the design team
and with other stakeholders.

A Case Study
Hunter Fan’s Industrial Design team asked Lextant’s User

Experience team to learn and reframe how customers
manage the comfort of their air at home, and translate
that learning two ways: into a long-term strategy for the
company and a short-term solution of a reimagined,
easer-to-use programmable thermostat.
Our user research validated that programming thermostats are
difficult to use. In fact, people had so much trouble program-
ming their thermostats that they would eventually operate
them manually, negating both the convenience and the envi-
ronmental and economic benefits of automatic temperature
adjustment. We found that current thermostats are difficult for
three reasons: The thermostats unclearly disclose steps. They
contain inconsistencies between the language used and way
users think about their programming schedule. And the prod-
ucts lack clear direction. All of these difficulties are multiplied
(and perhaps even created) by the technology constraints of
typical programmable thermostats—the use of a segmented
LCD display to reduce cost and extend battery life. This tech-
nology prohibits the screen from “refreshing,” so each area of
the screen can only be used for one graphic (for example, con-
sider most inexpensive alarm clocks—these have multiple
segments, allowing for each number to appear). Tasked with
designing under this same display technology for our product,
we relied heavily on task flows to help understand logical task
sequence, and control and indicator positions.
Current programmable thermostats ask users to program
temperatures based on four specific time periods: waking up,
leaving the house, returning home, and going to sleep. But
our research also indicated that people tend to think about
their day in terms of their context—when they are “at home,”
“away,” and “sleeping,” rather than as specific points in time.
Rather than saying, “I want it to be this temperature at (exact
time),” the research team heard customers saying things like
“I want it to be this temperature while I am (away, at work),
between (time) and (time).”

The team used task flows to transform the programming
steps from the traditional model (setting four distinct time
points, per the beginning of each “period”) to the new model,
and to address some of the difficulties stated previously. We
broke the current programming steps into individual actions
and possible outcomes so we could understand where and
how a new programming flow could shift, add, or remove
steps. We looked at both programming the thermostat for the
first time and going back to adjust specific times and tempera-
tures. The user’s goal was to set the thermostat for different
temperatures at different times for different days of the week.
The goal of our initial design was to establish time periods
and temperatures as different “rooms” the user would enter,
which focused more on adjusting the thermostat (which
happens more often than the initial programming).
By diagramming the sequence of events, we could begin to
establish an information architecture for the interface. The
task flow shown in Figure 6.14 was used as an underlay for a
more sophisticated task flow, including discrete individual
actions (using +/– to adjust hours and minutes) and all pos-
sible paths via “accelerators” (hidden shortcuts). Task flows
can also seamlessly transform into information architecture
for interactive experiences or discrete steps and actions for
physical ones. They can simultaneously act as tools for under-
standing and as guidelines for initial screen layout (wirefram-
ing). In this case, the thermostat has both hardware and
software components, so task flows helped to establish the
logical locations for physical controls and for indications of
next steps in a task.
Users evaluated our prototype of the initial interface that
emerged from the first task flow. As they went through our
outlined tasks (including “set the times and temperatures on
this thermostat to match your schedule”), we noticed oppor-
tunities for improvement in the programming area. Users
easily understood the new concept of the “away,” “asleep,” and
“at home” periods. However, they experienced three areas of
difficulty:
1. Identifying both the time and temperature desired for

each period

Goal: Set different temperatures for different times
of the day, for different days of the week.
1 2
Using the task goal, Turn pieces into actions. Organize.
define the pieces of Base actions on what needs to be done in order to advance. Organize sections
based on what you know. In this case, time and temp were broken into discreet
your interaction. “rooms” the user would enter, achieving their goal after going through both.
Away
temps select temp
edit temp Asleep
to edit
At Home
times Away
select period to
edit time
edit Asleep
select day(s) to
days
edit
3
initial *Users have the option to bypass Scheduling altogether by
Establish logical flow. scheduling* selecting to run on an Energy Star default schedule.
select period
edit temp Away Asleep At Home
temp to edit
enter away enter asleep enter at home

temp temp temp
editing a
schedule
now we’re going
to set your
schedule.
select period At Home
edit time Away Asleep (default fill based on
time to edit away & asleep)
Actions that can enter away time1 enter asleep time

be taken when (leave) 1 (sleep)
editing a schedule,
only after initial
scheduling. away time 2 enter asleep time
(return) 2 (wake)
Direct route taken
during initial
scheduling. Route select remaining select day(s) to select day(s) to select remaining
may also be taken days apply schedule to apply schedule to days
when editing.
No.
Days Days
Yes. Remaining? Remaining? Yes.
No.
Done!
Figure 6.14
2. Programming all three periods under temperature, but
Task flow: early stage. only two under time
3. Selecting the specific days to program as a discrete and

separate step, which is a convention established by
most current programmable thermostats.

This diagram represents the interaction
editing a initial flow after considering user feedback
schedule scheduling on the initial design. Temperature and
time editing are now grouped by period
1 under “edit schedule.”
edit schedule select day to edit
2
select period to
Away Asleep At Home
edit
Actions that can 3 Hidden accelerators

enter away time1 enter asleep time allow user to jump
be taken when
editing a schedule,
(leave) 1 (sleep) between any step in
this shaded area.
only after initial
scheduling.
advance to next enter away time 2 enter asleep time
day (return) 2 (wake)
Direct route taken
during initial
scheduling. Route Yes. enter at home
may also be taken enter away temp enter asleep temp
temp
when editing. Days
Remaining?
“Copy day” allows one day’s programs copy
to be copied to multiple other days of
the week.
day
No.
Days select days to

Yes. Remaining?
copy to
Done! No.
Final touchscreen designs:

Screen layout and design were strongly influenced by the constraints of the Segmented LCD screen technology.
(Orange lines indicate blinking.)
1 2 3
Select Day to Edit. Select Period to Edit. Enter Away Time 1 (Leave).
User selects the day they would like User selects the period they would User is prompted to enter the first
to program. like to edit for that day. Away time. Initially, the user is guided
through the process by the “Next”
button (see blue line flow above),
however invisible touch zones act as
accelerators, allowing users to move
between periods, start and end times
and temperatures.
Figure 6.15
Task flow: later stage.

To address the first two areas, we combined the times and
temperatures. We also built in hidden shortcuts to program
adjustment that did not interfere with the user’s ability to
complete the task in a linear manner (see Fig. 6.15).
This overcame the drawbacks of the segmented LCD
technology by navigating users through steps that needed to
be linear (screens 1 and 2 in Fig. 6.15), while allowing for
more flexible navigation in areas where more information was
helpful in providing context (see screen 3 in Fig. 6.15). The
third area was resolved by moving “select day to edit” to the
beginning of the flow.
Figure 6.15 illustrates definite connections between the
task flow and the final design of the thermostat interface. Task
flows allowed the team to frame the best way to progressively
disclose information and actions to the user.
As the design progressed, task flows were important for
articulating the reasons for changes in both the product’s
architecture and visual design. They allowed our team to
explain to each client stakeholder why the control locations
and engagements were key to the user’s overall ease of use and
cohesion of the experience. Task flows also allowed the stake-
holders to ask questions and direct feedback at very specific
points in the design, making their input easy for us to act on.
Although task flows served as important communication
tools between our two teams, they did not replace a fully
functioning interactive prototype, which illustrated the task
flow and possible deviations in a more comprehensive and
realistic manner.
About the Author. Lauren Serota is an interaction designer at

frog design, and was previously a design researcher with
Lextant in Columbus, Ohio. Before earning a bachelor’s
degree in industrial design from the Savannah College of Art
and Design, Lauren spent her formative years in public rela-
tions and promotions for the electronic music industry. She
developed her own cultural anthropology curriculum while
at SCAD, and she continues to seek out information and per-
spectives that challenge and reinterpret norms. Lauren has
spent time as an industrial design recruiter, interaction
designer, and trend researcher.

Chapter 7
Methods for Building
an Experience Framework
By now, you have created a sense of informative meaning out

of the gathered data through the various organizational and
structural arrangements described in Chapter 6. This data
may be meaningful on a pragmatic level—it will likely be
more usable and useful (both to designers and to users) than
the raw words, photos, videos, or artifacts captured during
research. Additionally, these new visual descriptions will be
easier to present to stakeholders and to others involved in the
development of products. However, humanity requires a
sense of emotional resonance. Usability and usefulness do
not recognize the subjective and rich experience of the
human condition. Only when the content is related to people
and to the temporal qualities of behavior do the ideas really
begin to work.
A great deal has been written about the nature of human
experience. Philosopher and author John Dewey has made
vivid and critical connections between experience, art, and
education. Yet even Dewey has acknowledged that it is nearly
impossible to predict an experience accurately for the simple
fact that people “complete” the experience, and people are dif-
ferent. Dewey explains that “experience does not go on simply
inside a person . . . Every genuine experience has an active
side which changes in some degree the objective conditions
under which experiences are had” (Dewey, 1997). Designers
have increasingly embraced the idea of experience design.
Despite the difficulty of structuring a repeatable and predict-
able experience, they can approximate the human behavior
associated with time-based design by creating an experience
framework: a scaffold that contains the elements of experi-
ence but allows for individual difference and expression.

Three techniques can be used to build the experience
framework. All of these techniques emphasize the unique,
rich, and complicated facets of human life.
Telling a Story
Traditional industrial and graphic designers focus on the
creation of a static, two- or three-dimensional artifact.
Designers focus on form, function, and comfort or aesthetics,
but placing an immediate focus on an artifact implicitly places
value on the creation rather than the user of the creation.
When creating a scaffold for experiences, you should shift the
emphasis to acknowledging and understanding the user and
her activities, feelings, and desires over time. An easy, accessi-
ble, and relatively common way of articulating these issues is
the story. Storytelling, as old as language, allows an individual
to paint an immersive scene and environment.
The components of a successful story are subject to debate,
and the ability of one to actually tell a successful story requires
a particular talent. However, you can include some fairly
common components to make your story believable and easy
to understand.
The story should include a plot, characters, a setting, a
climax, and an ending. These components can be presented
precisely and vividly to encourage an awareness of sensory
detail. The narrative should also include some underlying
point. The story can be used to illustrate the problem with an
existing design or situation, or to better show how an artifact,
service, or system can be integrated into human day-to-day
life. In either case, it should serve to humanize the design
opportunity. The structure and emphasis of the story should
be on people and goals rather than on technology or engi-
neering. This will shift the emphasis from an artifact to an
experience, helping to create an experience framework to
move from information to knowledge.
Changing the Scale

Design problems exist in a context. You can always “zoom
out” and articulate how the context fits into the larger

framework of human existence. Similarly, you can “zoom in”
to identify details or nuances that are otherwise glossed over.
By zooming in, out, or even across, ideation and design inves-
tigation can be extended with regard to geography, time, or
even subject matter.
For example, when designing a coffee maker (usually
considered a physical artifact), you can zoom out to examine
the context of use: the countertop, the kitchen, a residential
location, or even a particular city or geographic region. This
shift allows you to find new points of contact with consumers,
new ideas for form and function, and new cultural require-
ments that can affect comprehension and desirability.
Similarly, you can zoom in to examine the details—the details
of freshly ground coffee, the grinder, or even of the coffee tree
itself where the beans are grown. This forces you into a posi-
tion of conceptual thinking rather than pragmatic thought.
You can also “zoom across” a problem in space and time,
thinking back through the roots of the issue and projecting
forward in time to see how a design might evolve. This seman-
tic zoom can help identify opportunities throughout the
entire problem space, rather than simply at the typical point
of emphasis (the product, or artifact). As an example, you
may start by exploring the “experience of use,” then backtrack
to consider how the product was purchased, how it was
shipped to the store, or even how it was produced.
Shifting the Placements

Another way to understand experience is to understand the
placements that support design, then to consciously and very
explicitly shift these placements. Theorist Richard Buchanan
describes placements in his text Wicked Problems in Design
Thinking; he explains that “. . . signs, things, actions and
thoughts are not only interconnected, they also interpenetrate
and merge in contemporary design thinking with surprising
consequences for innovation . . .” (Buchanan, 1996). These
are the placements, the organizational schema Buchanan has
established to describe all designed elements. Signs and
things represent symbolic, visual, and physical communica-
tion. Actions imply the idea of activities or services, whereas

thoughts can represent complex systems. Buchanan goes on
to explain that the real value of the placements comes when a
designed opportunity moves between points in the place-
ment framework: “. . . innovation comes when the initial
selection is repositioned at another point in the framework,
raising new questions and ideas” (Buchanan, 1996).
A coffee maker is a thing. You may approach the problem of
coffee making in the home by exploring various physical
shapes and functions that can make coffee making more usable,
useful, or desirable. But more interesting—even innovative—
results occur when considering that the output of design activ-
ities may be signs, actions, or thoughts. What if you come up
with a coffee provider that is part of a system instead of a phys-
ical artifact? Perhaps you identify an opportunity for a coffee
delivery service or a new type of digital coffee-related interac-
tion (a consumer could control the exact taste of the beans
through digital controls). These interesting relationships are
forged by viewing the old design opportunity in a new light: by
shifting the placements of the design framework. Ultimately,
this shift forces you to reconceptualize your design hypotheses
and helps to create a framework for experiences (see Fig. 7.1).
The methods presented in this section—methods of
moving from information to knowledge—help build an expe-
rience framework, in which people can have positive and
reflective experiences. Each of the methods and examples
emphasizes a form of storytelling that shifts perspective and
that positions you as a storyteller who can create time-based
narratives related to experiences.
Method: Concept Mapping

A concept map is a graphical method for organizing and
representing knowledge. Joseph Novak and Alberto Cañas—
arguably the method’s creators—describe how a concept
map supports meaningful learning through associative and
hierarchical connection forming. It “serves as a kind of tem-
plate or scaffold to help to organize knowledge and to struc-
ture it, even though the structure must be built up piece by
piece with small units of interacting concept and propositional
frameworks” (Novak & Cañas, 2006).

The Placements
Signs Things Actions Thoughts
Symbolic and Visual Material Objects Activities and Services Complex Systems
Communication
Shifting The Placements
Signs Things Actions Thoughts
Symbolic and Visual Material Objects Activities and Services Complex Systems
Communication
Figure 7.1
The placements of the design
Essentially, the map can be thought of as a picture of framework.
understanding (Kolko, 2007a). It is a formal representation
of a mental model. And a mental model “represents a possi-
bility, or, to be precise, the structure and content of the model
capture what is common to the different ways in which the
possibilities could occur . . . when you are forced to try to
hold in mind several models of possibilities, the task is diffi-
cult” ( Johnson-Laird, 2006). The concept map itself repre-
sents the creator’s mental model of a concept, but it also
informs and shapes that mental model as it allows designers
to see both the holistic scale of the concept and also critical
details within the concept. Because it affords action-based
understanding at both a gross and fine level, both its creation
and its usage become tools for sensemaking.
Novak and Cañas describe three core learning approaches
that are emphasized during concept-map creation:
1. The designer must possess prior knowledge. This implies

that the designer actually conducted the research to
generate the data that are being synthesized.

A discovery process, frequently considered a “waste of
time” because of the lack of actionable output, is
actually critical for developing tacit knowledge upon
which this technique can build.
2. The material must be presented in language that relates to
the designer’s prior knowledge. Because the “learner” is
the designer in this case, he selects the language
representations used on the map and he embeds in the
map various elements that make sense to him, based
on his prior knowledge. As he integrates new ideas
into the map, they build upon a recognized foundation
of previous experience.
3. The designer must choose to learn meaningfully. This
implies that he must see the value in synthesis
methods and in concept mapping because a more
automatic or procedural approach to this method will
act as a more rote, less effective method of learning.
(Novak & Cañas, 2006)
Generally, a concept map links elements to one another.
It creates a hierarchical relationship between elements and
allows for cross-linking between seemingly disparate ele-
ments. Specifically, a concept map will form connections
between entities (nouns) by describing action-oriented
relationships (verbs). The connections are literal, because a
noun will have a line drawn from it to a verb that makes
sense in the given context of a design problem. The map pro-
vides a visual way to understand relationships through lit-
eral connections as well as through proximity, size, shape,
and scale.
As an artifact, the map is intended to illustrate relation-
ships. The map can be used to communicate these relation-
ships to other members of the design team or to a client. More
important, however, the act of creating the map is generative
and is a way to produce critical knowledge. You must make
subjective value judgments in both selecting the items to
include on the map and in indicating the relative strength of
the relationships between items. In this way, you are actually
learning as you make this artifact. In fact, the artifact is almost

incidental when compared to the amount of highly specific Scrubbing Motion
domain knowledge you will gain while making the artifact.
Teeth
Toothbrush
You can produce a concept map by following these steps: Bristles
1. First, begin to identify the words that make up the Clean
core taxonomy. A taxonomy is a classification of Hygiene

words, often arranged in a hierarchy of importance. In Cavity
this case, the words that matter are the nouns and
Breath
verbs of the problem space—the people, places,
systems, artifacts, organizations, actions, processes, Process
methods, and other entities and activities. List all of Daily

the words on index cards or post-it notes, one word Meals
per card. See Figure 7.2 for a simple and unranked
taxonomy in an (oversimplified) example of teeth Figure 7.2
brushing. Simple and unranked taxonomy
in an example of teeth brushing.
2. Now create the sense of order and hierarchy in the
taxonomy by rearranging the cards. Elements are
deemed to be more or less important than one
another, and they are moved to illustrate this
Teeth
importance. Those that are identified as a subset of a
larger element are indented and placed lower to Equipment
illustrate this relationship. New elements are added at Toothbrush

this stage as appropriate. Bristles
This prioritization forces the design team to make value Floss
judgments, arguing for or against a particular position, about Clean

each item based on each team member’s understanding of the Scrubbing Motion
problem space. This activity works best in teams of two or
Process
three people, as the discussion generates useful information
Daily
about the dataset. The teeth-brushing taxonomy may be pri-
Meals
oritized as shown in Figure 7.3.
Hygiene
3. Begin to outline the structure of the map. Using the
Cavity
most important elements (or the elements farthest to
Breath
the left in the indented hierarchy), begin to draw, on a
large sheet of paper, circles to illustrate each entity.
Figure 7.3
Connect the circles with lines to illustrate A prioritized teeth-brushing
relationships between the elements. taxonomy.

4. Continue to fill in the rest of the map. It will begin to
create small sentence fragments of meaning, such as
“teeth can become clean by using a scrubbing motion”
(see Fig. 7.4). This illustrates the generative and subtly
abductive nature of the map, because you may have no
deductive or inductive way of knowing that teeth can
become clean by using a scrubbing motion.
5. Complete the map. This will likely take several tries, as

you begin to understand which elements have more
nodes, and how deep connections between nodes may
not have been obvious in your static list of terms.
6. Use a visual design tool such as Adobe Illustrator to

clean up the mess and make the contents easier to
understand. Selectively add color to create another
level of hierarchical organization.
During synthesis, you can use the concept-mapping

method as described earlier to organize and understand a
topic and to produce a model of that understanding. The
model will continue to change and evolve as the design does.
Teeth
require the use of can become
Equipment Clean
generally made up of in order to prevent by using a and freshen
Toothbrush Floss Cavity Scrubbing Motion Breath
is a stick with constituting a to ensure good
Bristles Process Hygiene
performed 3 times performed after
Daily Meals
Figure 7.4
Filling in the map with small
sentence fragments.

For Example:
Using Concept Maps in Product Development
Contributed by Hugh Dubberly, Dubberly Design Office
A concept map is a collection of terms related to a main idea.
Links between terms form a structure—something like an
outline, but with some branches connected. Labeling a link
with a verb creates a noun-verb-noun chain that can be read
as a sentence. Thus, concept maps present a series of proposi-
tions related to each other and a main idea.
Mapping a content domain—creating a concept map—is
an effective way to understand a domain. Sharing a concept
map with project stakeholders is an effective way to identify
errors in understanding and reach consensus on content defi-
nition, structure, and boundaries. Mapping a content domain
is a good way to prepare for designing or redesigning a con-
tent-rich Web site, application, or service.
The Benefits of Concept Mapping

Deepening Understanding. We developed a concept map
of the Java programming language as a way to understand
Java. The map helped us prepare to redesign and relaunch
Sun’s main Web site for Java developers, www.java.sun.com.
Concept mapping was one of many tools we used in the design
process, which also included auditing the existing site, review-
ing site traffic logs, and interviewing Java developers. The
main questions we faced were these: How should we organize
www.java.sun.com? What should the information architec-
ture be? Answering these questions was not trivial because
the site contained more than 110,000 pages. It could not be
reorganized by simply reading a few pages and moving them
around. What we needed was a deep understanding of Java—
what it is, how it is used, how it changes, and why it matters.
The trouble was as follows: We knew little about Java
except that it was a programming language that runs in many
environments. We developed the Java concept map so we
could learn what we needed to know. The knowledge we
gained making the map enabled us to propose revisions to the
site’s information architecture with confidence. The knowl-
edge also helped us to back up our proposal with reasoning
built on a firm foundation—a definition of the content

domain (i.e., the Java concept map) already accepted by the
client and his many internal constituents.
Building Trust. Like any large corporate project, the

redesign of www.java.sun.com encountered political issues.
First, it was a visible project in a decentralized company. That
meant the project had a lot of vocal stakeholders. In addition,
www.java.sun.com was managed by Sun’s Developer Relations
Group, which had recently been formed by consolidating sev-
eral previously separate departments. Not everyone was
happy about the new organization.
As we began to meet internal stakeholders, we encoun-
tered considerable skepticism about the site redesign project
and our ability to execute it. Developing the concept map
became a way to engage known stakeholders, discover new
ones, and build trust.
We interviewed a series of Sun employees involved with
both Java and www.java.sun.com. We began with a small
group of employees, who in turn suggested others. Eventually
the number of employee interviews exceeded 50. We also
asked the stakeholders to review the concept map as we devel-
oped it.
At a project meeting a few weeks into the process, one of
the key stakeholders reviewed the map and said, “Not bad. It
looks like you’re ready to meet the Java Distinguished
Engineers.” Before that, no one had mentioned these high
priests of Java; they turned out to be a powerful constituency.
The map helped us find them and gave us entree—both per-
mission to meet and something to discuss. Those meetings
went well; the Distinguished Engineers were intrigued by the
map. (It is not often that someone turns up with a map of
your baby.) We also entered the discussions with more cred-
ibility than we had at the start of the project, because we had
clearly done a lot of homework to make the map. Our organi-
zational efforts paid off, because Sun introduced the
Distinguished Engineers only when we were prepared to
meet them.
The most important benefit of the map, though, was that
we were able to discuss the structure of Java and ensure that
we understood it, rather than discuss a menu system or page

layout, which might have conflated issues—the structure of
Java, the site information architecture, and the appearance of
the navigation interface.
By separating content from expression—by mapping—we
were able to establish relationships and build credibility and
trust before proposing changes to the client’s baby, the Java
Web site.
Other Uses. Although the main goal of the concept map

was to help the design team understand Java so that we could
reorganize www.java.sun.com, it soon became clear that the
map might have wider uses. Our working version of the map
looked like a sketch, which reflected the constant changes we
were making. (It was messy.) The sketch form invites com-
ments where a more polished form may inhibit them.
When we reached consensus on the content, we formalized
the map’s appearance. Eventually, the map went through two
printings and was distributed to more than 25,000 Java devel-
opers. We also created an interactive map, which is still avail-
able online at http://www.dubberly.com/concept-maps/
java-technology.html
The Process of Concept Mapping. At the beginning of the

www.java.sun.com redesign project, we asked to see Sun’s Java
models. Although we were unable to find detailed models, we
did find slides from marketing presentations—“marketectures,”
simplified versions of technical architectures. One of these
marketectures depicted Java as the Parthenon; three steps
supported a few columns capped by an architrave and a pedi-
ment. This model included less than a dozen elements. It
became our starting point.
Set Goals. Setting goals is the key to managing. Rick

Robinson points out that all research should begin with a
clear goal, what he calls a “hunt statement.” Likewise, mapping
should begin with a clear goal.
We set six goals for the Java concept map:
1. Develop an understanding of Java shared among the

www.java.sun.com redesign project’s stakeholders.

2. Inform both the logical organization of www.java.sun.
com and its integration with other sites.
3. Develop a framework by which changes to Java can be

understood.
4. Open a dialog with senior Java stakeholders.

5. Provide an overview of Java to people familiar with
computing but unfamiliar with Java.
6. Develop a map that an average Java programmer

would consider accurate.
Identify Terms. The first step in developing a concept map

is to identify terms that could be included. In this phase, the
goal is to quickly explore the domain. Write down whatever
you find or think of. Editing comes later.
Our first list of terms came from the team’s own experi-
ence, from glossaries of Java terms, and from the indices of
books on Java.
We kept our list of terms in a spreadsheet. We printed each
term on a label and affixed the label to a colored “sticky,” so
that it could be moved and grouped later. We then placed the
stickies on a 4-by-8-foot foam-core board, so that we could
move the whole group around the office easily (see Fig. 7.5).
Our initial list included roughly 400 terms.
Prioritize Terms. We prioritized the terms, creating more

manageable clusters:
• 11 first priority
• 45 second priority
• 157 third priority
• 136 fourth priority
• 51 fifth priority
Triage is a similar strategy. Which terms are critical? Which

terms can we deal with later? And which terms are not
relevant?

Figure 7.5
Define Terms. We defined each first-, second-, and third- Example of stickies on a
level term, adding definitions to the spreadsheet. The list of foam-core board, which
enabled easy movement around
definitions served as a foundation for later work. In discus- the office.
sions with reviewers, the definitions allowed the team to focus
on individual words, without referring to the map. The list of
definitions was particularly useful in conversations with
reviewers who did not understand that map, especially when
they reviewed early versions. Two hundred and five definitions
were collected from eight sources.
Organize Terms. We organized the first-, second-, and

third-priority lists into a single outline. We experimented

with several variations. For the most part, category titles in
the outline were first-priority terms.
Test Armatures. When the number of terms in a concept

map exceeds nine or ten, introducing levels or hierarchy may
make reading easier. Large concepts maps (more than 50
terms) are almost impenetrable without attention to both
semantic and visual hierarchy.
We like to organize large concepts maps around an “arma-
ture,” a primary sentence or two. A good place to start is with
a horizontal sentence placing the main concept in a context;
then add a vertical sentence defining the concept. Other
terms link off the armature.
An armature should include the terms most fundamental
to the concept being mapped. These fundamental terms and
relationships serve as the backbone for the rest of the map,
providing structure and hierarchy. The armature is often a
starting point for readers (see Fig. 7.6).
We experimented with several armatures. The client and
the design team chose the armature with the most meaning-
ful relationships and the one that provided both physical and
logical space for the rest of the terms.
Add Terms. We added second- and third-priority terms.

New terms suggested changes to the armature.
Review and Revise. Once we had an armature fleshed out

Figure 7.6
Example of an armature.
with secondary terms, we reviewed the map with the client
Developers use Java to make Software for People
such as
is a
Development Desktop Server Embedded

Tools Applications Applications Applications
Tool
comprising
Programming Security
Class Library JVM
Language Model

and a small group of Java experts. They suggested additional
reviewers. From this early stage, reviews were ongoing. We
continued to interview stakeholders while we developed the
concept map, asking them to review and comment on the
current version (see Fig. 7.7).
Reviews took place in one-on-one interviews, on the
phone, or via e-mail. We sent drafts of the map to groups
within Sun. We also posted large printed copies in high-traffic
areas at Sun; reviewers wrote directly on the map or attached
yellow stickies. Marked-up maps were returned to us. Several
people reviewed the map multiple times. Thirty-six people
reviewed the map in one-on-one interviews. Ten people pro-
vided feedback via posted maps.
Subdivide Large Maps. As we added terms, the map

became unwieldy and difficult to consider as a whole. So we
divided the map into logical sections (see Fig. 7.8).
Subdividing the map increased efficiency. We distributed
sections to team members, who refined their sections simul-
taneously. They added terms, modified relationships, and, in
some cases, created secondary armatures. We reassembled
the sections around a refined armature, paying special
attention to relationships between the sections. At its largest,
the map measured 3 x 8 feet (see Fig. 7.9).
Refine the Typography. The team adopted Sun Sans as the

primary typeface, conforming to Sun’s corporate identity
standards. Early sketches produced some new typographic
devices that were eventually applied to the map. One device
was a sort of footnote or hypertext link, which allowed us to
indicate more relationships without drawing more long lines
across the map (see Fig. 7.10).
Refining appearance required seven complete revisions.
Check Again. Throughout the project, we worked with a

copy editor. She checked each comprehensive revision for
spelling, grammar, and sense. Sun’s legal and trademark
department also reviewed the map several times, as did an
attorney working for our client’s department and two subject-
matter experts.

Figure 7.7
Concept map.

Figure 7.8
Concept map divided into
sections.

Figure 7.9
The subdivided
concept map.
Figure 7.10
Concept map using
hypertext link, which
allows for indicating more
relationships without
drawing additional lines
on the map.
At the end, Sun’s marketing department asked for a few
visual changes—and we faced a nerve-racking few days when
a senior manager questioned whether the map contained too
much proprietary information. Luckily we were able to show
that the information was already available on www.java.sun.
com. The map went through a total of 53 numbered variations
(see Fig. 7.11).
Print and Distribute. The map was physically printed, and

Sun initially distributed the map at the JavaOne conference in
Japan.

Figure 7.11
Project Stats. The final map contains the following:
Variations of concept map.
• 235 terms
• 425 links (relationships)
• 110 descriptions
We began the map in October 2000 and delivered printed

copies in September 2001. The process required the
following:
• 49 weeks
• more than 50 interviews

• more than100 meetings
• more than 2,000 emails
The team that created the map included the following

individuals:
• Audrey Crane, project manager, interviewer,
researcher, mapper
• Paul Devine, content expert, mapper
• Hugh Dubberly, interviewer, mapper
• Jim Faris, mapper, graphic designer

• Paul Pangaro, our client
• Harry Saddler, content expert, mapper, graphic

designer
• Ylva Wickberg, interaction programmer
More Information. For more on concept mapping, read

Gowin and Novak’s Learning How to Learn.
For more on teaching concept mapping, read Dubberly’s
The Baseball Project: A Step-by-step Approach to Introducing
Information Architecture, available at http://www.dubberly.
com/articles/the-baseball-projects.html
About the Author. Hugh Dubberly is a design planner and

teacher. At Apple Computer in the late 80s and early 90s,
Hugh managed cross-functional design teams and later man-
aged creative services for the entire company. While at Apple,
he cocreated a technology-forecast film called Knowledge
Navigator, which presaged the appearance of the Internet in a
portable digital device. Also while at Apple, he served at Art
Center College of Design in Pasadena as the first and found-
ing chairman of the computer graphics department. Intrigued
by what the publishing industry would look like on the
Internet, he next became director of interface design for
Times Mirror. This led him to Netscape, where he became
vice president of design and managed groups responsible for
the design, engineering, and production of Netscape’s Web
portal. Hugh graduated from Rhode Island School of Design
with a bachelor of fine arts degree in graphic design; he earned
a master of fine arts degree in graphic design from Yale
University.

Method: Forced Semantic Zoom
(“Ecosystem Mapping”)
In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames created a film called Powers of
Ten. Through a constant perspective change, the film first
explores the very large (the solar system) and then the very
small (atoms and molecules). The viewer can frame the subject
matter in relationship to a “known” form (the human body),
and as the visualization zooms in and out, the viewer can draw
conclusions about the relative size of otherwise unthinkable
concepts (just how big is 10 to the 24th power, anyway?). The
film is a literal journey through geography, space, and time, but
it also illustrates a more important and subtle principle:
Changing the scale of a problem illustrates new problems,
issues, and opportunities, and it allows the designer to recon-
textualize the problem (Eames & Eames, 1978).
This form of literal zooming—of looking at things from a
closer perspective, or from farther away—matches closely the
semantic zooming that Charles Eames referenced as being
critical to his creative design work. As previously discussed,
you can “zoom in” on a problem space to focus on the details,
uncovering new problems and design opportunities in the
nuances of a specific area of the problem. Additionally, you
can “zoom out” to look at the container of the problem—of-
ten a larger problem itself—and to better understand contex-
tual cues and inherited problem details. This zooming
describes the ideas of inheritance and hierarchy, because a
single problem may contain other problems (inheritance),
and problems are hierarchically related. This describes a new
way of thinking about a problem space, and one that can be
used during design synthesis to develop a more refined sense
of purpose or a larger frame of reference. Consider that you
can look “above” the problem—zooming out and broadening
a perspective—to understand the larger context of the prob-
lem. This illustrates parallel problems or opportunities,
describes the relative size of the problem space, and helps to
contextualize the language of the problem space in a larger,
broader vernacular.
As an example, imagine that you are creating a Web site
for a cellular telephone service provider, Texas Telephone.

This Web site will let users buy phones, plans, and accesso-
ries. At the moment, you are tackling a particularly difficult
problem: how to structure the services area of the site, where
a user can choose from various options:
Some services will work only on phones with a large

screen.
Some services will work only with family plans, where

two or more users share a plan.
Some services are free, but have a per-use charge.
Other services cost a flat rate per month.

Still others are free only with a monthly data plan.
In your mind, the problem space likely starts as a mess, but

through synthesis, it becomes more clearly defined. You can
draw a map of specific services, with lines connecting them to
plans. You might make a visual list of relationships, and you
can start to see patterns emerging in the form of taxonomy.
This taxonomy shows types of services (free, pay per month,
pay per use), service penalties (overages, activations), plans
(family, individual), content (data, voice), and phones (smart,
feature).
At this point, you can continue to synthesize in the defined
problem space. However, by “zooming out” a bit, you can
start to see that you have ignored issues of customer service,
bill payment, or the checkout process. These topics—related,
but broader than services—clearly have an impact on services
from the user’s perspective.
By contrast, zooming in and narrowing perspective begins
to identify actual problem constraints (as compared to theo-
retical domain constraints). Zooming in on the services men-
tioned earlier, you may start by grouping the services by genre
(entertainment services, GPS and location services, commu-
nication services, etc.). This helps to make sense of the prob-
lem at one hierarchical level of detail, but it ignores the
contents of the specific group. Now you can zoom in to look
more closely at a single genre—communications services
include text messaging, picture messaging, and one-to-one
paging. Now you can zoom in to text messaging, finding that

each message costs five cents and can be only 160 characters.
Now you can zoom in to the character limit, to understand the
historical motivation behind the limitation and the relation-
ship to single-directional pagers.
You could follow this semantic zoom much more deeply
or into the problem or much farther out from it, but neither
would lead to a practical solution. Zooming way out would
show that telephones exist in a culture and are deeply related
to the nuanced relationships between people. You could
explore those social relationships and digital technology’s
influence on them. This perspective has design implications,
but they are too broad to be practical in the context of a real
problem. Or you could zoom in far enough to explore vari-
ous user-interface mechanisms for selecting a particular ser-
vice, debating the pros and cons of a dropdown box as
compared to a slider. During synthesis, this might be
thought of as “stuck in the weeds,” as this level of detail is
inappropriate when attempting to tame the larger frame of
complexity.
A forced semantic zoom, or ecosystem map, is most useful
when used with a concept map, described earlier, and when a
zoom is limited to only three levels up or down. As you have
seen, a concept map represents a sketch of your understand-
ing at a given time. You can force a semantic zoom into any
area of the map and can act on this zoom by filling in the new
noun and verb relationships that show up at that new level.
These new relationships will be more tactical and will often
describe more localized and nuanced behavior. Additionally,
you can force a semantic zoom out of the map, and you can
draw the noun and verb relationships around the perimeter
(showing entities and actions that exist on a broader, more
strategic level).
Crispin Porter + Bogusky, an advertising agency known
for, among other things, the “Sacrifice your Facebook friends
for a Whopper” campaign, uses ecosystem maps as a way of
abstractly diagramming the anatomy of a new advertising
program. These maps are a tool for understanding context—-
and this type of diagram fleshes out the relationship of the
elements, their roles with one another, and overviews the
essential campaign strategy.

Jordan Clayton-Hall, a designer at Crispin Porter +
Bogusky, explains:
the process of making these maps forces us to think through

all the campaign pieces and how they all fit together. This
helps us understand the strategic/engagement environment.
Through this process, we can look at where we are going,
what we could be doing, and analyze any potential gaps we
may need to bring to life. This helps us understand the
conditions surrounding our idea and what is needed for it to
grow in a complicated campaign system. More and more
campaign initiatives we start now involve the visual planning
of the campaign strategy, its functions, and how all the
different parts of the system interact with the central idea as a
whole. In many ways these maps are the campaign visualized.
Once we have figured out what the key story is about, we can
then lay out what needs to be articulated in the map.
(J. Clayton-Hall, personal communication)

Applying the semantic zoom to a concept map requires fol-
low-through. It can seem redundant and time consuming to
reproduce elements of the concept map at each zoom level,
yet capturing both the redundant conceptual “container” and
the changing content within is entirely the point of this
method. Here are the steps:
1. Sketch a concept map, a picture of understanding.

When viewed from the perspective “zooming,” the
map actually describes one picture of understanding at
a particular distance from the information (zoom level
0). Label the concept map “zoom level 0.” Commonly,
zoom level 0 describes a single product to be designed.
It references major areas of functionality, user benefits,
marketing attributes, and technology. It also likely
describes the people who will interact with the
product in some way (see Fig. 7.12).
2. Zoom out and redraw the concept map from that

perspective, as though you had pulled the camera
farther back while shooting the map. Individual

Easy to Production
Easy to twist and
grip turn
Designed for
Ergonomic
cheap and mass...
Brand
Quality
Durable Handle Evokes a
particular...
Washable
has a clean
transition to..
Head:
Plaque
Action Area
Pick
Act as Floss
Remove Food
Bristles
Remove Stains Figure 7.12
Apply Friction Concept map at zoom level 0.
elements have become smaller, so you will need to

apply new labels. The map itself takes up less space
within its background. Begin to fill in the new
background with the elements that exist in the
periphery of the map. Adding elements forces you to
consider people, technology, entities, ideas, and
artifacts that were deemed “out of scope” or only
“tangentially related” and to identify the actual
relationships between new and original elements. Call
this “zoom level –1.” Typically, zoom level –1
describes a product line, brand, or business unit. It
illustrates the relationships between a product and
other offerings from the same company and between a
product and other products in the life of a user
(see Fig. 7.13).
3. Zoom out and redraw the entire concept map again.

The initial elements are now too small to be seen. Add
new concepts to the periphery. Label this “zoom level
–2,” which often describes a company, segment, or
sector, and the relationships among business units,

Children’s Brushes
Generic Brush
Specialty
Co-Branded
Brush Advertising
(Disney, MTV, etc)
Packaging
Shared Brand
Elements
Color,
Material,
Finish
Disposable Brush Primary

Logo
Figure 7.13
Concept map at zoom level –1.
consumers, and entities that affect development and

use on a gross scale (see Fig. 7.14).
4. Zoom out one more time, to “zoom level –3.” No

matter where you started, you now should be thinking
about business strategy, societal contexts, and broad
issues that affect your product, system, or service.
Zoom level –3 examines the world, competition,
market, and global issues concerning development,
production, distribution, equity, and equality (see
Fig. 7.15).
5. Now return to your starting point, zoom level 0, and

begin the whole process again, but this time zoom in.
Focus on a particular feature or function on the
concept map that relates to your specific problem.
Redraw the concept map and label it “zoom level +1.”
As you get closer to the material, you view new data
about it, so identify new noun and verb relationships
(see Fig. 7.16).

Professional
Dental Chairs
Consumer Subsidize the

cost of..
Adult Brushes
Children’s Brushes
Whitening Strips
Mouthwash
Research and Development

Users
Sonic Care
Regulations
Patent
Figure 7.14
6. When you zoom in again, to “zoom level +2,” and

redraw the map, you can look at elements within a
particular feature. In a software product, this might be
specific widgets or interface controls that allow a user
to interact with the system (see Fig. 7.17).
7. Finally, “zoom level +3” brings you close to a single

element of the product. Again, in the context of
software, having zoomed in on a dropdown widget,
you are now actually considering the list of attributes
within it (see Fig. 7.18).

Radius
Philips
Competes with
Oral-B
Acme Dental Care
Procter &
Gamble
YangZhou
Fivestar
Toothbrush
Co.,Ltd
Walmart Distributes at Manufactures with
Yangzhou
Yangzhou
Shuguang
Target Hanjiang
Toothbrush
Jiangyang
Factory
Tourist
Products
Factory
Figure 7.15
Consider how the seven levels of zoom allow you to tra-

verse the entire concept hierarchy of the design space (see
Fig. 7.19).
At each of these levels, you will generate new knowledge
about the experience framework being built. All levels of
detail will ultimately lead to the “user experience,” so this
method of synthesis allows you to acknowledge each level
individually yet retain a sense of the whole. In this way, you
can generate the substance of thought that will drive creative
decisions during the design phase of the project.

Handle
Flexible
Square Head:
Action Area Plaque Pick
Backing
Intended to
facilitate..
High Impact
Plastic
Flexi-tensile
Ridged
Product
Contour Bristles
Logo
Multiple color
Conforming
to...
Multi-sized
Mint
“fresh guard”
Brand
Specifics
Figure 7.16
Concept map at zoom level +1.

treated
with
solvent
8 degree
angle
Ridged
Contour
Bristles
Multiple color
Conforming
to...
Multi-sized
Mint
“fresh guard” artificial
Large Brand
measuring.. Small Specifics
measuring.. 10,000
uses
.952 cm PMS 5757
Green
.635 cm PMS 288
Blue
Figure 7.17
15
count
etchant matrix Multi-sized Bristles
used
(sodium Large
hydroxide) measuring..
tapered .952 cm
Small
measuring..
polyamide
material
nylon core
.635 cm
polyethylene
terephthalate
truncated
chamfered
conical
17 tips
configuration
count
matrix
Figure 7.18

-3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
Global, World Company or Product Line Product Feature or Control or Attribute or
Marketplace or Brand Function UI Element Detail
Figure 7.19
Display of all seven of the concept map zoom levels.
For Example:
Breakpoint Diagrams and Other Tools
for Transitions
Contributed by Paul Gould, MAYA Design,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Diagrams as Strategic Tools for Stakeholder Collaboration
Just about every design project faces three perils:
• Presumptive misdirection. Clients who have a lot of

information about their customers assume that they
have the right information. This is common when they
gather feedback largely through surveys or focus
groups, or when someone with a strong personality
drives the design in a direction they believe to be right.
• Crippling politics. With large organizations, multiple

divisions and teams, or competing agendas, processes
get bogged down and the design ends up favoring the
interests of the group that wins out.
• Tunnel vision. When people work in organizational

silos they tend to address problems in an isolated
fashion. Any individual aspect of the final design might
be fine, but the overall experience can suffer from
incoherence.
To eliminate or bypass these problems, we frequently use

diagrams as a lever.
Our clients produce a lot of diagrams, too. These are often
standard pie and bar charts that simply report statistics, or
dense diagrams that map all the capillaries of a complex
system. They tend to disappear after a cameo in a report or
presentation.
By contrast, our diagrams are the start of something, not
the end. They become collaborative storytelling tools that get
stakeholders (makers, funders/buyers, and users) on the same
page with a shared understanding and a common purpose.
Our “Breakpoint Diagram” is one such tool. It became a
foundation piece and rallying point in a project that awoke a
sleeping giant.

The Carnegie Library. The problem: As the primary
currency of information has changed from paper to bits,
librarians have continued to organize information and con-
nect people to it. But with starvation budgets and competi-
tion in the information business, libraries began to suffer from
stagnation, entropy, and inbreeding. They assumed a defen-
sive posture, and librarians sometimes seemed more like
guardians of information (see Fig. 7.20).
Although librarians perceived themselves as helpful pro-
viders of information, users didn’t always find them approach-
able or the information navigable. Libraries “. . . didn’t really
take into account the experience of people in the building,
what they were trying to achieve, why they were there,” said
Herb Elish, then Carnegie Library’s new director. With this in
mind, the Library’s leaders developed a strategic plan to
regain relevance and attract new users, which included under-
standing library users and their experiences.
Understanding Users. This was strange territory for librar-

ians. They, and many other people who are steeped in an envi-
ronment or process, think that what they know is just as Figure 7.20
Example of a reference
librarian’s desk.

obvious to everyone else. Librarians said, “The experience of
users? Isn’t that straightforward? Look up an item, find its
location, retrieve it, and check it out.”
We knew exactly how many questions librarians answered
by phone versus in person. We also knew how users had
responded when the Library had asked what they want, which
included “open longer hours” or “more new materials.” But
we needed to know their goals and motivations, and we
needed to gain insights into how people actually used the
Library. We began by using ethnographic research methods
that included shadowing, interviews, contextual inquiry, and
usability analysis.
Where Did Breakpoint Analysis Fit in Our Design Process?

The following describes a high-level flow of the process used
in this project:
1. Kickoff (goals, themes, strategy, what is already

known)
2. Ethnographic research (understanding users)
• Shadowing
• Interviews
• Contextual inquiry
• Usability analysis
3. Synthesis (communicating findings and directing

design)
• Personas
• Breakpoint analysis
• Affinity clustering
• Information architecture
• Lexicon
• Issue/value analysis
4. Tiger teams (participatory design with clients and users)

5. Prototyping (iterative exploration and refinements)
6. Usability testing (is the design getting better?)
After even just a bit of initial research, our team started

forming our first diagram. It described what we called the
components of the library experience (see Fig. 7.21).
Components of the Library Experience. The components we

identified during research represented the fundamental aspects
of interacting with the library that were common to every user
experience. The most critical insight involves the cluster of
things that we labeled “Organizers.” Although library interac-
tions took many different forms or channels (telephones, com-
puters, handwritten notes, conversations, signs, and so on),
those channels were essentially three types of things:
1. Space: the physical space and structure, and the

placement, arrangement, and location of objects in
that space
2. Categorizations: classification schemes, labels, lists
3. People: librarians, staff, anyone who has some effect

on the experience
Alone and together, these components of the library expe-

rience act as organizers of the experience.
This form of expression helps present complex things in a
noncontroversial and broadly useful way. In fact, when we
introduced this diagram, librarians told us that it summed up
the essence of library experience in a way they had often
thought about but were never able to express succinctly. (We
go big with these documents, working with at least 11x17-
inch sheets to encourage recipients to keep them visible as
conversation tools. Several librarians displayed this diagram
in their offices.)
Breakpoint Diagrams. People who do not use the library

were an important target audience. In one case, we assigned
one of these nonusers the task of finding a specific book. We
asked the person to draw on a map where he went and take a
picture (with a disposable camera) every time he encountered

Figure 7.21
A high-level view of what
happens during the experience
of most library users.

something that blocked him from getting closer to his goal.
For example, the computer-based catalog turned out to be
unforgiving (e.g., “The Girl With The Pearl Earring” returned
no expected results and “The Girl With A Pearl Earring” did).
The participant was well educated and the task was not diffi-
cult, but the resulting map of his effort to locate the book
looked like spaghetti. This person bounced from one place to
another using one organizer after another without ever find-
ing the book. The photos were revealing, too (see Fig. 7.22).
Dismayed librarians said, “That’s how it is? That’s how we
look?”
Better Together. Delivering such bad news can be most

enlightening, powerful, and tactful when it comes in the form
of video, audio, or photographic evidence of real customer
experiences, or unbiased usability-test results. Most clients
are grateful to discover opportunities to improve and—
especially in the case of something new and unreleased—
help them to reduce their risk.
Figure 7.22
Photos and notes from the
experience of a library nonuser
in pursuit of a specific book
include many of the roadblocks
experienced.

Another way to prepare clients to accept the results is to
involve clients directly in the work where possible and appro-
priate, which makes it more of a codiscovery process. So
librarians who at first felt defensive (or at least under the
microscope) did start to see things through the eyes of their
customers, partly because they saw them firsthand with us.
They made major changes in how they worked with custom-
ers and now report much higher levels of satisfaction with
their work.
But we still needed a way to generalize our findings in a
way that kept the experiences at the forefront without getting
bogged down in minutiae. We combined our new under-
standing of organizers, major use phases, users with specific
goals and motivations, and documentation of actual user-ex-
perience roadblocks or “breakpoints” into a breakpoint
diagram (see Fig. 7.23).
As mapped against real experiences from our research,
every time that one type of user encountered a breakpoint that
prevented moving closer to a goal, we marked it with a big red
X. We referred to such experiences as “falling off a cliff ” because
even when it did not end all forward motion, it plunged users
into a different and jarring context (see Fig. 7.24).
Although it is tempting to solve every individual break-
point as it comes up, doing so would miss out on solving
larger issues that can address multiple breakpoints at once.
Looking at experience and breakpoint patterns across a series
of diagrams for different types of users helped us to make
design recommendations beyond the library buildings, such
as the following:
• Expanding the notion of usability to encompass a place

as an interface and an experience as a product
• Calling attention to unnecessary silos or stovepipes,

including administration, information, technology,
facilities, organization schemes, policies, terminology,
and so on
• Bridging gaps between products and systems

Figure 7.23
The breakpoint diagram format
communicated details about
complex and diverse
experiences of key types of
library users over major phases
of use and across multiple
organizers of experience—an
accessible way to identify
problem areas. It helped clients
and librarians to understand the
user experience and helped
designer to feed designs aimed
at eliminating breakpoints and
smoothing out transitions
among organizers.
Figure 7.24
“Falling off a cliff.”
About the Author. As a designer at MAYA Design in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, Paul Gould works with clients in diverse
domains—health care, energy, finance, defense, consumer
products, and public organizations—to make complex infor-
mation and interactions clear by first understanding human
motivations, capabilities, needs, and contexts of use. He has
taught human-centered design methods such as ethnographic
research, information architecture, and prototyping in corpo-
rate settings and in public schools. Paul also speaks at confer-
ences and workshops about topics related to the intersection
of design, human experience, and strategic innovation.

Method: Forced Temporal Zoom
(“Customer Journey Mapping”)
As shown earlier, you can shift semantic perspectives to see
things differently. Similarly, you can shift temporal perspec-
tives to understand how a product, service, or system lives or
grows with a user. You can look back in time to synthesize, for
example, preproduction or supply-chain requirements of
physical goods. Or you can look forward in time to under-
stand how a product might be discarded and how to design
for disassembly and cradle-to-cradle reuse.
Other names for temporal zoom are “customer journey
map” or “life-cycle experience analysis.” These names all ref-
erence the time-based nature of looking at the extended inter-
actions with a product, system, or service. As an example,
consider again Texas Telephone’s service configuration prob-
lem described earlier. Typically, emphasis will be placed on
the time of primary use, or in this example, when someone
buys service. However, you can look at both sides of time,
understanding first what it was like to research service plans
before being a customer, and second, what it will be like to
change or cancel service in the future. In both cases, time is
shifted, which affords a new set of “what if ” questions. By syn-
thesizing these during product development, you can begin
to design a cohesive and scalable framework for effective and
engaging experiences.

Like a semantic zoom, a temporal zoom starts with a concept
map. Again, you will change perspective, but rather than
changing the scale of a problem, consider it in the context of
a timeline.
1. Sketch a concept map, labeled, as before, “zoom level

0.” In the temporal zoom, this level describes a single
product, system, or service in its idealized, normal,
everyday usage. This artifact does not actually exist, so
even the initial zoom level produces generative
knowledge. This first step, which might take several
iterations, is typically created on a whiteboard by a
team of designers (see Fig. 7.25).

Bathroom
Easy to
twist and
Easy to grip turn
is in..
User
Ergonomic
holds and
manipulates..
Durable Handle
Washable
has a clean
transition to..
Head:
Plaque Pick
Action Area
Act as Floss
Remove Food
Bristles
Remove Stains
Apply Friction
Figure 7.25
Concept map with temporal
zoom at level 0.
2. Now, zoom backwards in time to the first time the user

used the product being described. It may have been in
a training scenario, a friend may have introduced the
product, or it may have been in a marketing context.
Whatever the experience, redraw the concept map to
emphasize this first use. Label this zoom level –1.
Emphasis at this stage might be on the out-of-box
experience, a trial use in a store, or a “viral” training
session of a friend sharing a design with another friend
(see Fig. 7.26).

Clean
Crisp
Bathroom
Toothbrush is in..
Bristles User
protects..
opens..
Packaging
Colorful end up in..

branding
instructions
Plastic
Garbage
window
Can
showing
product
Figure 7.26
zoom at level –1.
3. Again, zoom backward again, to zoom level –2, which

describes how the user acquired the product prior to
use. Describe this acquisition phase through the use of
a concept map to illustrate, again, the relationship
between nouns and verbs. This level usually involves
some form of transaction, so describe how a brand is
viewed during this phase (see Fig. 7.27).
4. The final backward zoom—level –3—looks at the

preacquisition experience. This may be how the user
learned about the system or item in the first place, or
how a friend purchased it as a gift and anticipated that
the user would like it. Emphasis is placed on the
discovery, both of the brand and the design itself (see
Fig. 7.28).

Grocery
Store
Colorful is in..
branding User
giant set of
clean teeth sees..
Display
clear
labeling
soft
presenting.. bristles
Packaging
hard
bristles
Colorful
branding
Plastic
window displaying..
Toothbrush
Figure 7.27
Concept map with temporal 5. Returning to your starting point, zoom level 0, you are
zoom at level –2. ready to explore what happens to the design in the
future. First, redraw the concept map to describe how
the design is viewed by someone who has developed
expertise, someone who has lived with the product
long enough to learn its nuances, advanced features,
and functionality (zoom level +1). This step often
illustrates shortcuts, power functions, and more
optimized, goal-directed functionality (see Fig. 7.29).
6. Zoom level +2 describes the failure scenario where the

product, system, or service reaches the end of its life.
This may be caused by technical failure, or it might be

Figure 7.28
walks and Concept map with temporal
talks zoom at level –3.
TV
advertisement
wind-up
walking constantly
teeth toys displayed on..
given iconic Colorful

away at element branding User
giant set of
clean teeth
dentist sees..
office
Display
Walk
Around
Without Automatic
Looking
Appropriate is able to..

Length of
Time User
holds and
manipulates..
Durable Handle
Washable
Rear Molars
Head: is able to reach..

Plaque Pick
Action Area
Back of Act as Floss
Incisors
Remove Food
Bristles Figure 7.29
are able to reach.. Remove Stains Concept map with temporal
Apply Friction zoom at level +1.
151
Handle
Faded
Colors
Washable
Head:
Plaque Pick
Action Area
Fails to
Bristles
Clean
Bad
Smell
Germs
Grey
Worn
Limp
Figure 7.30 due to exhausting a limited quantity of an item. This

zoom at level +2. might even be a more broad failure scenario, described
by competitive marketplace trends that lead to the
demise of a product, system, or service (see Fig. 7.30).
7. Zoom level +3 describes the replacement scenario,

where the user replaces the obsolescent, failed, or
broken product with a new one. This level raises
questions such as these: How does she apply her
previous knowledge to the new design? How does she
port her content from one digital tool to another?
Where does she put the old product? (see Fig. 7.31).

New
Toothbrush
Coupon receives
User
Disassembled is.. recycles..

in order
to reuse Old
Toothbrush
Plastic
Dentist
Office
Grocery
Website
Store
Figure 7.31
Consider how the seven levels of zoom allow you to tra-
zoom at level +3.
verse the product’s entire life cycle (see Fig. 7.32).
At each of these levels, you are basically redrawing the
concept map. The focus is on nouns and verbs, and on describ-
ing meaningful qualities and elements to consider during
future design phases. When the method is complete, you will
have established a series of maps that have illustrated new
problems, new opportunities, and new ways of thinking about
the entire product, system, or service.

-3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
Pre-Acquisition Purchase First Time Use Normal Use Expert Use Failure Replacement
Figure 7.32
The seven levels of temporal zoom and the product’s life cycle.
For Example:
The Emotional Touch Points of Shopping
Contributed by Beth Johnson and Gianna Marzilli Ericson,
Design Continuum
Spence Diamonds offered an excellent customer experience—
until the stores became busy. The personalized service was
unable to scale to the large demand, and customers were left
to fend for themselves. They tried to make sense of the variety
of ring settings, eventually became overwhelmed and frus-
trated, and left the store without making a purchase. The
stores could not support the volume of customers they were
attracting.
So the client asked us to design a new, partially self-guided
retail experience to better engage, educate, and empower cus-
tomers while they waited for a sales associate to become avail-
able. Our first step was to create a journey map based on
contextual research, to give everyone involved in the project a
common framework of customer touch points from which to
design.
The contextual research started with “secret shopping” at
the stores to put ourselves in the place of users and to experi-
ence noted physical and emotional touch points. We then
talked to customers in the store and to recent buyers to under-
stand their individual interactions. By experiencing the sales
process ourselves, we could map the physical touch points of
the process; talking to real customers helped us understand
the emotional implications of interacting with the brand.
The resulting journey map translated the team’s field
observations into a usable design tool that would act as the
backbone for creating an appropriate engagement-ring shop-
ping experience. The journey map was used to visualize the
entire customer experience on one page and find ways to
improve every point of contact with the different types of
customers. The journey map made areas of improvement easy
to identify (see Fig. 7.33).
For instance, the journey map pointed out opportunities
to connect with customers before they engage with a sales
associate. It also helped to guide brainstorms of how to affect
the customer’s senses from the moment he pulls into the

Figure 7.33 parking lot, including a custom mix of love songs and a custom
Example of a journey map. scent for the store. Being able to see the complete customer
journey helped to guide every decision from the color palette,
to material finishes, to the staff ’s dress code. More important,
the journey map allowed the team to see how all of these
varied design choices would interact with each other to create
the full experience.
The journey map also helped us to see unmet needs and
wishes. It led to the creation of ways to help support the
engagement-ring shopper’s decision-making process, such as
private conversation nooks and a tray that helps shoppers
organize their choices. Research and the journey also identi-
fied the ring shopper’s need for discretion, which inspired the
design of receipts with a secret code and a ring sizer that looks
like a coaster (see Fig. 7.34).

Figure 7.34
The resulting design of these
products reflects the usefulness
of the journey map in
identifying customers’ unmet
needs.

About the Authors. Beth Johnson is an envisioner at
Continuum, where she has focused on business-to-business
strategies and created design strategies for Herman Miller,
Nestle, and Penske Truck Leasing. Previously, Beth worked in
the power tool and baby product industries. She holds a
bachelor of fine arts degree in industrial design from the
Savannah College of Art and Design and is pursuing her mas-
ter’s degree in business administration.
Gianna Marzilli Ericson brings her background in design
and research to comprehensive design programs for
Continuum clients across the retail, health care, and service
sectors, including Quest Diagnostics, Massachusetts General
Hospital, and The Rockefeller Foundation.
Gianna’s interests lie in service design, design strategy,
health care environments, and communications design. She
has prior experience in clinical research and health communi-
cations, and she holds degrees from Williams College and
The Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Chapter 8
Methods for Creating Empathy
and Insight
Understanding Chasm 3: Empathy and Insight

The third chasm separates knowledge from wisdom. It is
perhaps the most difficult chasm to bridge because of the illu-
sive nature of wisdom itself. Many consider that wisdom is
achieved through both diverse and deep experiences. For
example, a teen living on the streets of New York City may be
considered “wise beyond his years,” while an author may be
praised as “wise” toward the end of her career. Experiences do
not have to be long or drawn out; they simply have to be emo-
tionally resonant. The path toward wisdom about design
leads through the experience of the beauty, pain, complexity,
and harmony of the human condition.
The key to achieving wisdom falls directly within the emo-
tional capacity for empathy. You will need to empathize with
the people who will be using, buying, considering, or con-
suming your design. Empathy is fairly easy to discuss, but it is
curiously difficult to feel. Most ethnographic tools are used to
understand context—to uncover details related to workflow,
or to learn vocabulary related to a particular group of people
or activity. Although this is useful, and particularly important
for enhancing usability or adding features and functions to a
product, understanding is not synonymous with empathy. To
feel what it is like to be another individual, you must identify
with that person’s culture, emotions, and personal style. Tools
like personas have been created as a proxy for actual compre-
hensive emotive immersion, but these tools lack real feelings.
They do not capture the depth of sorrow, passion, or hilarity
that can be found in actual life and in actual experiences.
That is the real value of empathy. Experiences involve
both the pragmatic (activities, goals, and tasks) and also the

conceptual and fleeting (such as feelings, irrationality, and
culture). Methods that attempt to formalize empathy can help
you design for not only utility and practicality but also emo-
tion and behavior—the underpinnings of interaction design
and arguably the most important aspects of design in culture.
Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that “a man who seldom
rides, needs only to get into a coach and traverse his own
town, to turn the street into a puppet-show” (Emerson,
1836). For a designer, the world is the puppet show. It is hilar-
iously entertaining, intellectually instructive, and curiously
beautiful when viewed as the subject of design research.
Paradoxically, the designer spends an exorbitant amount of
his time in the studio or in front of his computer—far from
the puppet show. Perhaps, in an effort to move toward a sense
of humble wisdom about humanity, the designer needs to live
more vibrantly.
Although observing the puppet show of life provides a
dramatic amount of insight into humanity, it provides only a
sensory glance at the world around us. Intellectual discourse
can serve to fill in the gaps, allowing for a bridge between
observation and understanding. We can find this discourse in
newspapers, magazines, and books. A wealth of knowledge is
waiting to be discovered in the written word, and we can use
it to attain wisdom. In the same way that a story helps move
structured information from information to knowledge, the
act of reading can allow for the synthesis of knowledge into a
world outlook.
These methods—of moving from knowledge to wisdom—
emphasize this vibrancy. The empathy that is established
through these methods is an inquisitive feeling of opportu-
nity: to imagine what it is like to be another person, in another
situation, with new tools and systems and services. These
methods are often the most fulfilling for design teams because
they “feel right”: The methods act as extensions of character-
istics you likely already have.
Method: Reframing
You will always approach creative problem solving in the
conceptual context of a “frame,” as described earlier. This

frame creates a subjective boundary around a problem space,
and that boundary becomes a relatively objective constraint
by which problem solving becomes easier.
The frame is usually selected without introspection, based
on experience, research, and assumptions. Consider the
example of being tasked with creating an “innovative new
toothbrush.” You will probably create (automatically, and
without much thought) a frame like this:
an average person, in his bathroom, using a physical item

with small bristles on the end to apply paste to his teeth; that
individual will likely produce friction with the physical item,
the paste and the teeth in order to remove food particles on
the teeth.
Note that this frame describes a person, a setting, and an

action-based goal. It describes a very culturally specific and
archetypical example of teeth brushing.
The design method of reframing recasts the normal frame
in a new, often unexpected perspective. Consider reframing
this example from the perspective of someone different than
the nondescript “average person.” You can purposefully view
the problem from the perspective of a dentist, a toothpaste
manufacturer, a child, someone from Thailand, someone with
no working limbs, or a group of people. The implications for
designed artifacts are dramatically shifted each time the
problem is reframed, and new design ideas—and design
constraints—emerge with each new frame.
Thus, reframing is a method of shifting semantic perspective to
see things in a new way. The new frame “reembeds” a product,
system, or service in a new (and not necessarily logical) con-
text, allowing you to explore associations and hidden links to
and from the center of focus.
This method attempts to move from knowledge to wisdom,
because it demands that you empathize with a target audi-
ence by trying to understand how something would feel in a
particular situation. Additionally, this method requires that
you tell a short but compelling story about a particular new
perspective, emphasizing both behavior and empathy. The
method assumes that you have enough tacit knowledge and
background in the working space to be effective in using

empathy. For instance, it is difficult to empathize with a
dentist if one has never seen or interacted with a dentist in a
meaningful way.

To reframe something, follow these steps:
1. Identify the “normal” frame. Unlike in the toothbrush

example, that can be difficult. A more realistic example
might be the design of a complicated piece of software
that is intended to allow for pricing and configuration
of parts.
For the purposes of this method, a design-specific

frame can be described as someone, in an environment,
using or considering a particular design embodiment from
a particular perspective. Note the use of “design
embodiment,” rather than “product.” This is because it
is possible to reframe things that are not discrete
products, such as services, systems, Web sites, and
even ideas, philosophies, and assumptions. Also note
again that the level of specificity of the perspective,
environment, and embodiment are dependent on the
design problem being considered. It may be easy to
define the frame of a “contained” design problem very
specifically, whereas more complicated systems or
services problems may require a more robust framing
description.
2. Create blank reframing charts. You will need three

charts to reframe the design opportunity from three
new points of view: perspectives, environments, and
embodiments. Each chart will look like the one in
Table 8.1.
Table 8.1 Example of a Blank Reframing Chart
Reframed from a New Primary Design

[Perspective/ User Goal Implications
Environment/
Embodiment]
# …

3. Reframe. Through structured or casual brainstorming,
the designer will begin to develop new items for the
left column of each chart. Depending on the desired
level of innovation for the particular design problem, it
is often desirable to include “provocations”—ideas
that may ultimately prove infeasible but allow for
“movement” across patterns (De Bono, 1995).
There are infinite “answers” to this left column, so this

activity can seem both tedious and challenging at
once. It is useful to set an arbitrary goal of “number of
new frames” and to target more than 100. The first few
will be easy, and because they are easy, they will likely
be obvious. Less obvious reframes have the potential
to offer innovative (although not necessarily useful)
design implications. As an example, a toothbrush can
be easily considered from the perspective of a dentist,
but is it possible to view a toothbrush from the
perspective of a dog or a pumpkin, or from outer
space?
4. Extrapolate likely user goals. As the charts become

populated with new frames, the designer will begin to
fill in the primary user goal for all items in all charts.
She will paint a picture of a credible story, judging
responses and adding criticism as appropriate. As the
designer thinks of the new frame, she tells a short but
compelling—and believable—story of how a user’s
goal might change given the new frame of reference.
This need not be long. A single sentence is sometimes
sufficient. When reframing toothbrushing from a dog’s
perspective, you might say that the dog wants to
escape, clean its teeth without feeling anything, or feel
as if though it is eating a delicious steak.
Because extrapolating user goals requires empathy, it is

a personal and projective activity. That is, a designer
needs to think and feel what it is like to be in another
situation. It is common to hear things like “If I were a
dog, I would . . .” or “If I were a fire hydrant, I would . . .”
during this activity.

5. Extrapolate design implications. The reframed design
context will produce new constraints or implications
or highlight hidden or overlooked existing ones. These
design implications may take the form of constraints
or recommendations—“the design must . . . ” or “the
design should . . . ,” which will be useful during the
design phase.
An alternative approach is to draw the design implications,

rather than listing them in words and phrases. This requires a
team member that is adept at quick sketching. The increased
level of fidelity of the output can have a powerful sense of
resonance for the design team, particularly when the team
includes engineers and software developers. Seeing the ideas
come to life can be persuasive, and the visualization process
can act as a bridge over the pragmatism of “what can actually
be done.”
During synthesis, a designer can use the reframing method
to shift frames explicitly and fundamentally, changing the
selected features and relationships and actively producing
new design implications and constraints.
Method: Insight Combination

A common goal for designers is to identify interesting ideas
and to come up with a multitude of potential designs, leaving
the refinement for later. Often the motivation of this activity
is to offer a view of what “could be,” not necessarily what
“should be.” This allows more conservative stakeholders to
envision the future and dream about directions for products
and services. These dreams are fed by insights, which are in
turn fed by design research. This manner of moving from
research to insight to idea is formulaic, relying on a design
team’s active and iterative approach often known as “rigorous
design process.” However, the process itself rarely lives up to
the name, because a rigorous process implies documentation,
control, purpose, and thought that simply is not present when
most designers tackle problems of innovation.
Insight combination is a method that generates a multi-
tude of new ideas and embeds these ideas firmly in the oppor-
tunity area and in the cultural context of your team. This

implies that design ideas will be tied to research findings and
to patterns in society and culture.
Insight combination is a method of building on established
design patterns to create initial design ideas. Through multiple
steps, this method first demands the articulation of individual
design insights and then forces a structured and formal pair-
ing of insights with existing patterns. This pairing creates a
new design idea that has a strong connection to both estab-
lished best practices and to problem-specific research data.
A design insight can be thought of as the additive of prob-
lem-specific observation (“I saw this”) and personal and pro-
fessional experience (“I know this”). This grounds an insight
in both the subjective and general knowledge of the specific
practitioner and in the objective data of the design problem
itself. From a sensemaking perspective, this embraces the epi-
sodic and experiential uniqueness of your memories and pairs
it with generally accepted ways of doing things. An insight
might manifest itself in the form of a new, subjective design
constraint that you add to the problem, or it might come as an
underlying philosophy and approach (a set of guiding pillars
or themes that guide the creative efforts). Insights might arise
through some of the other methods described in this text,
such as affinity diagramming, or they might come “as a flash,”
as your brain offers its own implicit synthesizing of the
problem space.
An insight is almost always contextual to the given design
problem being solved. As your personal and professional
experience is unique to you, so too is the problem space’s
experience unique to the domain being studied. In the con-
text of designing a mobile phone interface, for instance, you
might apply your expertise in a very different manner than
when designing a piece of enterprise software; yet in both
cases, your design process might appear to be the same, with
the steps and methods following a similar sequence and style.
This contextualized approach to design is because of the
problem-specific information and how it melds with your
personal design philosophy and tacit knowledge.
An insight might be: “Users sometimes have to send data to
the person they are talking to, and so the phone should allow
them to do this easily without hanging up.” Or: “Salespeople

will often sketch a hardware configuration while talking to a
customer, so the software should help them do this.” In both
cases, the insight is first observatory, then, prescriptive. It is
based on observation, but the observation has been filtered
and manipulated, and it has changed a great deal.
As a method, insight combination takes these observatory
and prescriptive insights and combines them with design
patterns. Through this combination, you will be forced to
examine and consider each unique insight and pattern.
Methodically, you must think about each facet of the design
problem that has been deemed useful or important. The
method is then divergent, because it actively produces
new ideas. Ideas are “moved forward” in a nonlinear fashion,
jumping over the expected to arrive at the unexpected.

Insight combination is best performed after contextual, quali-
tative research has been conducted. The method relies heav-
ily on the presence of both insights and patterns, and while
both are easily identifiable in data, both are also time con-
suming to produce and to capture in a succinct manner.
Research must be analyzed to produce insights. Patterns can
be identified only through introspection and reflection.
Insight development is best done in groups and in a casual,
distraction-free environment. Because insights come from
new ways of looking at data, other methods described in this
text, such as affinity diagramming, can be used in tandem
with insight combination.
The method of insight combination can be conducted as
follows:
1. Identify insights in the gathered data. You can begin to

identify insights in the data that have been gathered
during research by combining an observation (I saw
this) with knowledge (I know this). You can then
write the insights on yellow note cards. As an example,
perhaps you observed someone brushing her teeth
and noticed that the individual avoided using the
mouthwash that was sitting next to the sink. You might
recall your own last visit to the dentist. An insight

could then be developed: that mouthwash has an
implicit connection of taste and smell with going to
the dentist, which casts the product in a negative light.
Of course, this insight could be completely wrong—
and that is perfectly acceptable.
2. Identify design patterns relevant to the core domain.

Recall design patterns that are relevant to the
discipline being studied, and write these patterns on
blue note cards. Some designers keep pattern libraries,
noting trends and repeated design elements that
appear in produced artifacts. Others prefer to search
for patterns in the context of the problem. A pattern
that is loosely related to the toothbrush example might
be the trend in consumer goods (kitchen soap, gum,
etc.) to introduce new artificial flavors and smells like
amaretto and butterscotch. Another pattern is the
push toward digital timekeeping devices in children’s
toothbrushes—ways of helping children keep track of
how long they have been brushing.
3. Perform an insight combination by pairing a design

pattern with an insight and looking for affinities. There is
no “method” to this portion of the technique; cards
are literally combined at random, by mingling the blue
and yellow notes. You might move them around
physically and actively reflect on potential
combinations. When a combination makes sense and
generates a design idea, the idea is written on a green
note. Combining the insight (mouthwash has an
implicit connection of taste and smell with going to
the dentist, which casts the product in a negative light)
and the pattern (the trend in consumer goods—
kitchen soap, gum—to introduce new artificial flavors
and smells like amaretto and butterscotch) yields a
new design idea: produce a mouthwash that has a new
flavor, one that does not have properties normally
associated with the dentist’s office.
Many design ideas will be created; but not all of them will
be “good ideas.” Some will be technically impractical, while

others may not have business resonance. During synthesis
and particularly while conducting this method, it is best to
suspend explicit judgment of ideas and instead focus on pro-
ducing as many ideas as possible. Later evaluation phases can
determine which ideas are best, or most likely to be produced.
The focus of this method is on a large quantity of new ideas.

Conclusion
This text has presented a theory of synthesis: a combination

of cognitive psychology theory and social psychology knowl-
edge that results in a way of combining data in a well-formed
manner. The text has also presented the spark of synthesis:
the moment of creative energy that shifts the existing to the
potential, and that illustrates the ability for designers to pro-
duce new, novel, and emotionally charged design solutions to
complex problems. Additionally, the text has illustrated the
need for synthesis in the context of business, because synthe-
sis offers a rigorous path toward innovative ideas and a manner
of approaching these complex problems in a methodical
manner.
By using the methods presented in this text, designers
should be able to better make sense of complicated situations
and approach complex problems with a new and thorough
approach. You will be able to bring rigor to what has tradi-
tionally been a flexible and haphazard process. And you will
be able to rationalize and better substantiate design decisions,
because you will have a clear understanding of the path you
used to arrive at an idea—and you will be able to articulate
that path succinctly.
Some of the methods are clearly intended for the early
stages of synthesis, where you are attempting to understand
the problem space and make sense of the data you have gath-
ered. At that stage, a focus on data organization, pruning, and
judging is critical in order to make sense of a chaotic and
seemingly overwhelming amount of data.
Other methods are used to contextualize your design
problem in its larger setting by considering alternative per-
spectives, new viewpoints, and by embracing the abductive
leaps that are required in synthesis. At this stage, a focus on
innovation is supported by cultural aspects of play, flow, and
storytelling.
Conclusion 169
The methods that have been presented are intended as
starting points, upon which you can build your own tools and
techniques. The specifics of the method are incidental. What
is important is a rigorous approach to synthesis, one that is
made explicit through repeatable techniques and one that can
be both documented and rationalized.
Design synthesis is a way of thinking about complicated,
multifaceted problems with a repeatable degree of success.
Design synthesis methods can be applied in the context of
business, with the goal of producing new and compelling
products and services. The principles and methods presented
in this text are teachable, repeatable, and understandable.
They are creative activities that actively generate intellectual
value, and they are activities that are unique to the discipline
of design. Most important, when applied and formalized,
these activities are billable and immensely useful in the devel-
opment of new, novel, useful, and appropriate designs.
170 Conclusion
Glossary
Abductive argument. The argument from best explana-

tion, depending on circumstances and experience.
Affinity diagramming. A method of bottom-up data
organization intended to define categories based on likeness
of data.
Concept map. A graphical method for organizing and
representing knowledge.
Constraint. A boundary condition that defines what is
considered a successful solution to a design problem.
Deductive argument. The output is guaranteed to be true,
if the premise is true.
Design research. A human-centered approach to under-
standing culture, by observing and then celebrating the
unique and peculiar aspects of humanity.
DIKW. The path from data, to information, to knowledge,
to wisdom.
Divergent thinking. Part of the design process that refers
to rapid ideation, producing as many ideas as possible.
Ethnography. A form of qualitative research that requires
immersion in the natural contexts upon which work, play, or
culture are experienced.
Flow. An optimal experience achieved during creativity
that is an automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of
consciousness.
Flow diagramming. A method for visualizing the path
through a system.
Forced semantic zoom (ecosystem mapping). A method
for understanding—and visualizing—the larger system of
people, products, services, and environments within which a
particular product exists.
Forced temporal zoom (customer journey mapping). A
method for understanding—and visualizing—the situational
aspects within which a particular design element exists.
Glossary 171
Frame. A perspective or viewpoint.
Inductive argument. Gives good evidence that a conclu-
sion is true.
Innovation. Something new that is successful in the
marketplace.
Insight combination. A method of building on estab-
lished design patterns to create initial design ideas.
Marketing research. A human-centered approach to pre-
dicting behavior, usually related to purchasing, through
observation and statistical modeling.
Mental model. A cognitive representation and simplifica-
tion of a complex system.
Reframing. A method of shifting semantic perspective to
see things in a new way.
Pattern. A design paradigm, illustrating habitability—
something that is beginning to be found in more than one
product, system, or service.
Satisfice. A goal to meet objectives but not necessarily to
exceed them.
Sensemaking. A process that describes the patterns one
sees, the constraints one applies, and the mental models one
forms about his or her design problem.
Synthesis. An abductive sensemaking process of manipu-
lating, organizing, pruning, and framing data in an effort to
produce information and knowledge.
Visualization. The act of externalizing ideas in a visual
format.
172 Glossary
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Index
abductive argument, 171 breakpoint diagrams, 139, 142–43,

best guess and, 23 142f, 144f
constraints regarding, 26 “Breakpoint Diagrams and Other
creation of something new via, Tools for Transitions”
26–27 (Gould), 136–47
deduction and, 23–24 Bruner, Jerome
design synthesis and, 25 meaning and, 68–69
four-step process of, 25–26 “The Narrative Construction of
induction and, 24 Reality” and, 67–68
knowledge funnel and, 27 Buchanan, Richard, 103–4
minimal/universal and,
27–28, 27f Cañas, Alberto, 104
nature of, 23, 24 Carnegie library example
play and, 49 breakpoint diagrams and, 139,
socialization vs., 57–58 142–43, 142f, 144f
affinity, 76, 167 components of library
affinity diagramming, 171 experience in, 139, 140f
flow encouraged by, 54 design perils introducing, 136
how to apply, 76–78 design process, 138–39
method, 76–85 “falling off a cliff ” and, 143, 146f
overview of, 76 problem in, 137, 137f
parallel clustering example and, recommendations from, 143
79–85 understanding users in, 137–38
variations in, 78 changing scale, 102–3
when to use, 61t chasms, 60, 60f. See also empathy;
AI. See artificial intelligence experience framework;
Alexander, Christopher, 16 insight; meaning making
algorithm, 27, 27f techniques
analysis/synthesis, of data, 69–70 Chipchase, Jan, 33–34
apathy, 46 Clayton-Hall, Jordan, 128
armature testing , 114, 114f clustering, parallel
art benefits of, 83–85
design vs., 43 collaboration fostered by, 83–84
flow and, 50–51 complexity management and, 83
artifact model, 86, 89f conclusions regarding, 85
artificial intelligence (AI), 5 final theme selection in,
82–83, 84f
bank example, of flow individual cluster making in,
diagramming , 91f 81–82, 82f, 83f
baselining, 58 methodology selection and,
behavioral research, 34–35, 36 79–80
Beyer, Hugh, 86 output comparison in, 82
blank reframing charts, 162, 162t overview, 79
bottleneck, 54 possibilities seen via, 84
bounded rationality theory, 8 process, 80–83
brainstorming, 49 reflection time in, 80
Index 177
clustering, parallel (cont’d) Contextual Design: A Customer-
speed of, 85 Centered Approach to
trade-off decisions and, 84 Systems Design (Beyer &
code, 27, 27f Holzblatt), 86
collaboration, 83–84 contextual research, xii–xiii
complexity management, 83 creative association, 56
components of library experience, creativity
139, 140f constraints and, 41
concept mapping, 171 green hat and, 50
armature testing in, 114, 114f increasing, 42
benefits of, 109–11 motivation and, 41–42
connections/relationships thinking hats and, 49–50
formed from, 106 visualization and, 56
forced semantic zoom using , crippling politics, 136
127, 128–35, 129f, 130f, 131f, Crispin Porter + Bogusky,
132f, 133f, 134f, 135f 127–28
forced temporal zoom using , crops visualization exercise,
147–54, 149f, 150f, 151f, 54–55, 55f
152f, 153f, 154f Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly,
how to apply, 107–8, 107f, 108f 50–51, 52
introduction to, 104–5 cultural model, 86, 87f
knowledge and, 106–7 culture of synthesis
learning approaches emphasized challenging constraints and,
during, 105–6 43–46
maps subdivision in, 115, 118f flow and, 50–54
120f playfulness, 46–50
method, 104–24 prohibitive culture vs., 56–58
other uses of, 111 visualization and, 54–56
process of, 111–15, 121–22 customer journey mapping , 171.
product development example See also Spence Diamonds
of, 109–24 shopping example
rechecking , 115, 121, 122f concept maps used in, 147–54,
resources on, 124 149f, 150f, 151f, 152f,
review/revise in, 114–15, 116f 153f, 154f
setting goals and, 111–12 how to apply, 147–54
taxonomy and, 107, 107f Texas Telephone example
term defining in, 113 and, 148
term identification in, 112, 113f when to use, 61t
term organization in, 113–14
term prioritizing in, 112 data
trust building via, 110–11 affinity diagramming and, 76–78
typography refined in, 115, 120f analysis/synthesis of, 69–70
understanding via, 109–10 defined, 59
when to use, 61t DIKW system and, 59–60,
constraints, 171 60f, 61t
abductive reasoning and, 26 enhancing through intuitive
art and, 43 leaps, 66
client provided, 44, 45 externalizing process, 63–65
creativity and, 41 flow model and, 87
culture of synthesis and, 43–46 implications and, 73–74
designer provided, 44–45 insights and, 73
as flexible, 45–46 judging, 66
as implicit, 45 making it visible, 70, 71f
play and, 49 making meaning out of, 63–100
successful design and, 43 organize to produce
understanding/breaking, 9–10 relationships in, 65–66
178 Index
participant boards and, Dubberly, Hugh, 16
71–72, 72f about, 124
post-it-notes and, 71 “Using Concept Maps in
prioritizing, 66 Product Development” by,
visual design cleaning up, 65 109–24
wall of, 64
what it means phase regarding, Eames, Charles, 43, 125
72–73 Eames, Ray, 125
de Bono, Edward, 49–50 ecosystem mapping , 171. See also
decision making, strategic, 38–39 Carnegie library example
deductive argument, 23–24, 171 background regarding, 125
Dervin, Brenda, 11 concept maps used with, 127,
design embodiment, 162 128–35, 129f, 130f, 131f,
designer 132f, 133f, 134f, 135f
design problem and, 3 context understood using,
dilemma of, 42–43 127–28
provided constraints, 44–45 how to apply, 128–35
strategic decision making and, Texas Telephone Web site
38–39 example illustrating, 125–27
design method when to use, 61t
affinity diagramming, 76–85 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 160
concept mapping and, 104–24 “The Emotional Touch Points of
of contextual research, xii–xiii Shopping” ( Johnson &
enhancing data through intuitive Ericson), 155–58
leaps, 66 empathy
example illustrating, 67–74 creating, 159–64
externalizing process, 63–65 puppet show of life and, 160
flow diagramming, 86–100 reframing method and, 160–64
judging data, 66 understanding chasm of,
making meaning out of data, 159–60
63–100 understanding vs., 159
organize to produce enlightenment, wisdom as, 59
relationships, 65–66 entity, 90
parallel clustering, 79–85 Ericson, Gianna Marzilli
prioritizing data, 66 about, 158
problems regarding, xiv–xv “The Emotional Touch Points of
selection guide, 61t Shopping” by, 155–58
synthesis missing in, xiii–xiv ethnography, 31, 90, 171
visual design cleaning up experience
data, 65 benefits of, 20–21
design research, 171 components of library, 139,
ambiguity about, 32–33 140f
characteristics of, 32t human nature and, 101
design synthesis and, 38–40, 40f intuition and, 20, 21
immersion perspectives, patterns and, 20, 22
34–36, 36f experience framework
innovation link, 37–40, 40f changing scale and, 102–3
marketing research vs., concept mapping and, 104–24
31–33, 32t forced semantic zoom and,
origins of, 31 125–47
as problem finding, 40 forced temporal zoom and,
qualitative, 67–74 147–58
design specific frame, 162 human behavior approximated
Dewey, John, 101 by, 101
DIKW system, 59–60, 60f, 61t, 171 shifting placements and,
divergent thinking, 47–50, 171 103–4, 105f
Index 179
experience framework (cont’d) concept maps used in, 147–54,
story telling and, 102 149f, 150f, 151f, 152f,
techniques for building, 102–4 153f, 154f
externalizing process, 63–65 how to apply, 147–54
Texas Telephone example
“falling off a cliff ”, 143, 146f and, 147
Fallman, Daniel, xii when to use, 61t
feedback, immediate, 51 frame, 172. See also reframing
flow, 171 defined, 13–14
action/awareness merged in, 51 design specific, 162
attributes of, 51–52 high-level, 14
culture of synthesis and, 50–54 mental model and,
defined, 50–51 17–20, 161
encouraging, 54 selecting, 161
example regarding, 52–53 short- vs. long-term perspective
failure worry absent in, 52 and, 13
immediate feedback and, 51 software design example of,
impediments to, 53 14–15
self-consciousness gone in, 52 funnel, knowledge, 27
flow diagramming, 171
background regarding, 86 Gedenryd, Henrik, 44
bank example of, 91f generative reasoning, 58
data/information and, 87 “Getting to Meaning through
early stage task, 97, 98f Story” (Hinman), 67–74
flow model and, 89 Gould, Paul
how to apply, 90–93 about, 146
Hunter fan thermostat example “Breakpoint Diagrams and
of, 94–100 Other Tools for Transitions”
later stage task, 99f by, 136–47
model, 87, 90f green hat, 50
steps to creating, 91–93 Guilford, Joy Paul, 49
uses of, 89–90
when to use, 61t hats, six thinking, 49–50
flow model, 90f heuristic, 27, 27f
data and, 87 hierarchical problem solving ,
flow/process diagram as 4–5, 5f
type of, 89 high-level frames, 14
“The Flow through a Hunter Fan Hinman, Rachel
Thermostat” (Serota), about, 75
94–100 “Getting to Meaning through
forced semantic zoom, 171. See also Story” by, 67–74
Carnegie library example Holzblatt, Karen, 86
background regarding, 125 hunch, informed, 8
concept maps used with, 127, Hunter fan thermostat
128–35, 129f, 130f, 131f, difficulty of using, 96
132f, 133f, 134f, 135f early stage task flow diagram for,
context understood using, 97, 98f
127–28 programming steps
how to apply, 128–35 transformation for, 97
Texas Telephone Web site Hunter fan thermostat example
example illustrating, 125–27 case study, 96–100
when to use, 61t early stage task flow diagram in,
forced temporal zoom, 171. See also 97, 98f
Spence Diamonds shopping final design in, 99f, 100
example of flow diagramming, 94–100
180 Index
later stage task flow diagram in, observation/prescription and,
99f 165–66
overview, 94 patterns and, 166, 167
task flows and, 94–95 rigorous design process and, 164
user prototype adjustments what it is, 164–65
made in, 98–100, 99f when to use, 61t
user prototype evaluation in, intuition, 20, 21, 66
97–98
Johnson, Beth
ideas about, 158
creative association and, 56 “The Emotional Touch Point of
design process regarding, 42 Shopping” by, 155–58
results production concerning, judgment
42–43 data and, 66
visualization and, 56 making, 8–9
ideation stage, 38 suspension of, 167–68
ill structured problem, 6–8, 10
immediate feedback, 51 knowledge
immersion perspective concept mapping and, 106–7
current state/realistic, 34, 35 defined, 59
current state/subjective, 34, DIKW system and, 59–60, 60f, 61t
35–36 funnel, 27
design research and, 34–36, 36f reframing and, 161–62
opportunity/potential, tacit, 8
34–35, 36
implications, 73–74, 164 legal moves, 5
incomplete information, 9 library example, Carnegie
inductive argument, 24, 172 breakpoint diagrams and, 139,
information. See also meaning 142–43, 142f, 144f
making techniques components of library
DIKW system and, 59–60, experience in, 139, 140f
60f, 61t design perils introducing, 136
flow model and, 87 design process, 138–39
implications and, 73–74 “falling off a cliff ” and, 143, 146f
insights and, 73 problem in, 137, 137f
as meaningful data, 59 recommendations from, 143
what it means phase and, 72–73 understanding users in, 137–38
informed hunch, 8
innovation, 172 Making Meaning (Bruner), 68–69
design research link, 37–40, 40f manipulation of time, 94
design synthesis and, 38–40, 40f marketing research, 172
expectations, xvi characteristics of, 32t
immersion perspectives and, design research vs., 31–33, 32t
34–36, 36f Martin, Roger, 27, 58
what it is, 37 meaning
insight, 73 data and, 63–100
combination method, 164–68 information and, 59
understanding chasm of, 159–60 story and, 68–69
insight combination, 172 meaning making techniques.
affinities and, 167 See also affinity diagramming;
context and, 165 flow diagramming
how to apply, 166–67 chasm and, 60, 60f
judgment suspension regarding, conclusions about, 74
167–68 enhancing data through intuitive
method, 164–68 leaps, 66
Index 181
meaning making techniques (cont’d) Murray, Colleen
example illustrating, 67–74 about, 85
externalizing process, 63–65 “Parallel Clustering” by, 79–85
implications and, 73–74 mystery, 27, 27f
insights and, 73
judging data, 66 narrative. See story
making data visible, 70, 71f “The Narrative Construction of
organize to produce Reality” (Bruner), 67–68
relationships, 65–66 Notes on the Synthesis of Form
participant boards, 71–72, 72f (Alexander), 16
post-it-notes, 71 Novak, Joseph, 104
prioritizing data, 66
visual design cleaning up observational research, 31
data, 65 Osborn, Alex, 49
what it means phase, 72–73
memoing , 70, 71f parallel clustering
mental models, 172 benefits of, 83–85
frames and, 17–20, 161 collaboration fostered by, 83–84
incorrect, 18–20, 19f complexity management and, 83
reason and, 18 conclusions regarding, 85
what if and, 17–18 final theme selection in,
method, design 82–83, 84f
affinity diagramming, 76–85 individual cluster making in,
concept mapping and, 104–24 81–82, 82f, 83f
of contextual research, xii–xiii methodology selection and,
enhancing data through intuitive 79–80
leaps, 66 output comparison in, 82
example illustrating, 67–74 overview, 79
externalizing process, 63–65 possibilities seen via, 84
flow diagramming, 86–100 process, 80–83
judging data, 66 reflection time in, 80
making meaning out of data, speed of, 85
63–100 trade-off decisions and, 84
organize to produce “Parallel Clustering” (Murray),
relationships, 65–66 79–85
parallel clustering, 79–85 partial information, 9
prioritizing data, 66 participant boards, 71–72, 72f
problems regarding, xiv–xv patterns, 172
selection guide, 61t application of, 21–22
synthesis missing in, xiii–xiv experience and, 20, 22
visual design cleaning up insight combination and,
data, 65 166, 167
method selection guide, 61t range of, 21
models perspective. See also forced
artifact, 86, 89f semantic zoom; forced
cultural, 86, 87f temporal zoom
flow, 87, 89, 90f immersion, 34–36, 36f
mental, 17–20, 19f, 161, 172 semantic, 161
physical, 86, 88f short- vs. long-term, 13
problem solving and, 16 physical model, 86, 88f
problem understanding Piaget, Jean, 49
and, 16 placements, shifting , 103–4, 105f
sensemaking and, 15–17 playfulness
sequence, 86, 88f apathy and, 46
motivation, 41–42 brainstorming and, 49
182 Index
corporate encouragement of, 48 term identification in, 112, 113f
culture of synthesis and, 46–50 term organization in, 113–14
divergent thinking and, 47–50 term prioritizing in, 112
green hat and, 50 typography refined in, 115, 120f
mindset vs. physicality and, prohibitive culture
46–47 baselining in, 58
prohibitive culture vs., 57 culture of synthesis vs., 56–58
thinking hats and, 49–50 playfulness vs., 57
what is not, 46, 47 socialization vs. abductive
point of view, 13 thinking in, 57–58
politics, crippling, 136 usual functioning of, 56–57
post-it-notes, 71 puppet show of life, 160
Powers of Ten (Eames film), 125
presumptive misdirection, 136 qualitative design research, 67–74
problem solving
constraints, understanding/ reality construction, 67–68
breaking, in, 9–10 reframing, 172
design as act of, 40 blank reframing charts and, 162,
designer related to, 3 162t
as hierarchical, 4–5, 5f design implications extrapolated
human vs. logical techniques of, 10 in, 164
ideation stage and, 38 how to apply, 162–64, 162t
ill structured problem and, knowledge to wisdom via,
6–8, 10 161–62
informed hunch and, 8 method, 160–64
judgment making and, 8–9 semantic perspective
legal moves and, 5 shifted via, 161
modeling and, 16 user goals extrapolated in, 163
partial information and, 9 when to use, 61t
understanding, 4–10 relationship
well structured problem and, concept mapping creating, 106
5–6 organize to produce, 65–66
process diagram spatial, 55
bank example of, 91f requirement definition document,
flow model and, 89 58
how to apply, 90–93 research
steps to creating, 91–93 behavioral, 34–35, 36
uses of, 89–90 contextual, xii–xiii
product development example observational, 31
armature testing in, 114, 114f research, design, 171
of concept mapping, 109–24 ambiguity about, 32–33
concept mapping benefits and, characteristics of, 32t
109–11 design synthesis and, 38–40, 40f
concept mapping process in, immersion perspectives, 34–36,
111–15, 121–22 36f
maps subdivision in, 115, innovation link, 37–40, 40f
118f, 120f marketing research vs., 31–33,
map variations, 122f 32t
printing/distribution of origins of, 31
map in, 121 as problem finding, 40
project stats, 122–23 qualitative, 67–74
rechecking in, 115, 121, 122f research, marketing, 172
review/revise in, 114–15, 116f characteristics of, 32t
setting goals in, 111–12 design research vs., 31–33, 32t
term defining in, 113 rigorous design process, 164
Index 183
satisficing, 8, 172 reality construction and, 67–68
selection guide, method, 61t understanding through, 67–69
self-consciousness, disappearance strategic decision making, 38–39
of, 52 subjectivity, 34, 35–36, 60
semantic perspectives. See also synthesis, 172. See also culture of
forced semantic zoom synthesis; theory, design
shifting, 161 synthesis
sensemaking , 172. See also action/awareness merged and, 51
abductive argument analysis/, 69–70
in action, 11–12 creation of something new from,
defined, 11 26–27
as internal process, 16 failure worry and, 52
models, importance of, in, immediate feedback and, 51
15–17 missing in design method,
sequence model, 86, 88f xiii–xiv
Serota, Lauren Notes on the Synthesis of Form
about, 100 and, 16
“The Flow through a Hunter Fan other disciplines regarding, 3–4
Thermostat” by, 94–100 overview of, 41
Shedroff, Nathan, 59 self-consciousness
shifting placements, 103–4, 105f disappearance and, 52
shopping example, Spence synthesis, design. See also culture of
Diamonds synthesis; theory, design
mapping used in, 155–56, 156f, synthesis; specific subject
157f abductive reasoning and, 25
problem, 155 benefits of studying, xvi–xvii
results of, 156, 157f chasms to cross in, 60, 60f
Simon, Herb conclusions about, 169–70
AI and, 5 defined, xi
bounded rationality theory and, 8 DIKW system and, 59–60,
decision making and, 4 60f, 61t
ill structured problem and, 6 goals of text for, xv–xvi
well structured problem and, lack of method in, xii–xv
5–6 links innovation/research/
six thinking hats, 49–50 design, 38–40, 40f
socialization, 57–58 as magical, xi–xii
software design example, of frame, problems from lack of
14–15 systematic, xii–xv
spatialization, 64 as problem understanding, 40
Spence Diamonds shopping strategic decision
example making and, 39
mapping used in, 155–56, user-research sessions leading
156f, 157f to, xii
problem, 155
results of, 156, 157f tacit knowledge, 8
stages, design task flows
ideation stage, 38 early stage diagram, 97, 98f
strategic decision making and, explained, 94–95
38–39 taxonomy, 107, 107f
story temporal perspectives. See forced
applicability to design, 69 temporal zoom
experience framework and, 102 Texas Telephone Web site example
“Getting to Meaning through forced semantic zoom and,
Story,” 67–74 125–27
meaning and, 68–69 forced temporal zoom and, 147
184 Index
theory, design synthesis, xv–xvi. trust building, 110–11
See also experience; frame; tunnel vision, 136
patterns; sensemaking
benefits of studying, xvi–xvii, 3 “Using Concept Maps in Product
constraints, understanding/ Development” (Dubberly),
breaking, and, 9–10 109–24
hierarchical problem solving
and, 4–5, 5f Veen, Jeff, xi
ill structured problem and, visualization, 172
6–8, 10 benefits of, 54–56
informed hunch and, 8 bottleneck and, 54
judgment making and, 8–9 change over time and, 55
partial information and, 9 comparison and, 54–55, 55f
problem solving and, 4–10 creative association and, 56
rationale for studying, 3–4 culture of synthesis and, 54–56
well structured problem and, ideas made concrete via, 56
5–6 spatial relationship and, 55
thermostat example, Hunter fan
case study, 96–100 well structured problem, 5–6
early stage task flow diagram in, what it means phase, 72–73
97, 98f Wicked Problems in Design
final design in, 99f, 100 (Buchanan), 103–4
of flow diagramming, Wicks, Jim, xi
94–100 wisdom
later stage task flow diagram in, DIKW system and, 59–60,
99f 60f, 61t
overview, 94 as enlightenment, 59
task flows and, 94–95 path to, 159
user prototype adjustments reframing and, 161–62
made in, 98–100, 99f
user prototype evaluation in, zooming , 125. See also forced
97–98 semantic zoom; forced
thinking hats, 49–50 temporal zoom
Index 185

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Exposing the

Human-tech: Ethical and Scientific Foundations

Adaptive Perspectives on Human–Technology Interaction:

Computers, Phones, and the Internet: Domesticating

Neuroergonomics: The Brain at Work

Attention: From Theory to Practice

Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction

Oxford New York

Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

Printed in the United States of America

Designers continually describe their profession as a way of

A Lack of Method in Practice Leads to Problems

1. Clients do not see the relationship between design research

2. Design consultancies do not plan for, assign resources to, or

3. When synthesis actually occurs, it is perceived as messy,

4. Novice designers do not know how to accomplish

These problems are roadblocks to innovation, and they

The Goals of This Text

The Immediacy of This Text

Synthesis in design involves the combination of two

Understanding How People Solve Problems

1. [The large problem] I need to find the best and most

a. [An embedded problem] I need to find an old

4 Exposing the Magic of Design

3. We can identify “legal moves”—that is, the steps we

4. We can identify any knowledge the problem solver has

5. The “legal moves” required to solve the problem

6. The “legal moves” required to solve the problem

1. What does the “best and most appropriate talent

2. What does it mean to “appropriately assign a person to

6 Exposing the Magic of Design

Although this problem is ill defined and hard for a com-

I need to find the best and most appropriate people in my

In this scenario, I have made substantial progress, yet I

1. I am “pretty sure” that Jeff was essential to the previous

Acting on an Informed Hunch

8 Exposing the Magic of Design

Using Partial or Incomplete Information

Understanding, and Breaking, Constraints

10 Exposing the Magic of Design

Cognitive psychologists Robert R. Hoffman, Gary Klein, and

Sensemaking, Frames, Models, and Patterns 11

12 Exposing the Magic of Design

The Role of Perspective in Framing Situations

– “I just can’t get a break. My life is a series of

– “Thank goodness we escaped successfully. It’s only

– “My life is over. All of my important things were in

Each of these statements is shaped by a lifetime of experi-

Sensemaking, Frames, Models, and Patterns 13

• Ease of use. The user should never encounter confusing

• Power. The software should afford complete control

• Pleasure. The act of using the router software should be

In fact, each of these frames was suggested by various

14 Exposing the Magic of Design

Designer: “When the user clicks on the image of the router,

Developer: “But if it animates to the right, it will cover

Developer: “But it’s going to cover things up. That seems

Because the designer’s and developer’s frames are different,

The Importance of Models in Sensemaking

Sensemaking, Frames, Models, and Patterns 15

16 Exposing the Magic of Design